Gradable and Non Gradable Adjectives

There are eight parts of speech, among these, we have adjectives.  An adjective is the fourth part of speech after noun, pronoun, and verb. An adjective helps us modify the noun or pronoun. For instance, she runs fast. Here, we see that “fast” modifies her running ability.

There are various types of adjectives, two of them are gradable and non-gradable adjectives, where gradable adjectives can be modified to appear to strengthen, while those that cannot be modified are ungradable adjectives.

Here, on this page, we will go through the examples of adjectives. 

Following this we will go through the following areas of Adjectives:

• Gradable adjectives

• Non-gradable adjectives

• Gradable and non-gradable adjectives are examples to understand this concept.

Examples of Adjectives

The list of adjectives is bolded in the below examples:

• Shea lives in a beautiful house located in Hobart.

• Lisa is wearing a trendy dress today. 

• This recipe is tasty.

• She purchased an elegant dress yesterday.

• She writes an inspirational story on her blog.

• This shop is much nicer.

• My mom is an adorable baby.

• Linda’s dress is graceful.

• This crockery is unbreakable.

• I met a generous person in NY.

Now, let us understand the adjective gradability in detail.

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Adjective Gradability 

Types of Adjective Modifiers 

1. Gradable Adjective

Several adjectives express qualities that can be measured in the following degrees: 

• Size, 

• Beauty, 

• Age, etc. 

Frequently, we call these adjectives gradable adjectives. It’s because we can use these in comparative or superlative forms, or with grading adverbs such as;

• Very

• Extremely, and

• Fairly; to specify a person or a thing that has more or less of a particular quality.

The following are some examples of common gradable adjectives used with grading adverbs. You will notice that in the below examples, we come to know something about adjective modifiers:

• An expensive jewelry 

• A very expensive jewelry 

• A fairly expensive jewelry 

• An extremely expensive jewelry 

You can see that there are variations in describing the jewelry. So, we understand that the adverbs like very, fairly, and extremely are telling us where this specific jewelry belongs on the scale of ‘expensiveness’. Therefore, using them, we can make a great difference to the meaning of an adjective, as we discussed now.

2. Non-Gradable Adjective

There are various adjectives that describe qualities that are completely present or completely absent. Also, these adjectives do not appear in comparative and superlative forms, and can’t be added with adverbs such as very or extremely, because we cannot imagine degrees of more/less of the quality that we describe. We refer to these adjectives as non-gradable adjectives. Often, non-gradable adjectives occur with non-grading adverbs such as completely that emphasize the extent of the quality. However, talking about non-gradable adjectives, we see the following examples:

• The western side of the nation

• Electrical devices

• A nuclear bomb

We see that the words like western, electrical, and nuclear cannot be modified. This means that we cannot modify these words with adverbs like fairly, very, or extremely. So, we call the un-modified adjectives the classifying adjectives.

Now, let us go through a few gradable and non-gradable adjective examples.

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1. List of Graded Adjectives

• Angry

• Big

• Busy

• Clever

• Cold

• Deep

• Fast

• Friendly

• Good

• Happy

• High

• Hot

• Important

• Long

• Popular

• Rich

• Strong

• Tall

• Warm

• Weak

• Young

Graded Adverbs List

• A Little

• Dreadfully

• Extremely

• Fairly

• Hugely

• Immensely

• Reasonably

• Slightly

• Unusually

2. Non-Graded Adjective Examples

• Excellent

• Awful

• Terrified

• Dead

• Impossible

• Unique

• Chemical

• Digital

• Domestic

Non-Graded Adverbs List

• Utterly

• Absolutely

• Completely

• Totally

• Nearly

• Virtually

• Essentially

• Mainly

Confusion between Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives 

Examples: Facts and Information

Often, confusion arises among gradable and non-gradable examples because some adjectives have both gradable and non-gradable senses with the same meanings, such as:

Example 1:

1. Nina sounded slightly foreign.

2. Nihal is advising on foreign policy.

In the first sentence, we see that the adjective “foreign” is gradable because it refers to a measurable quality. However, in the second sentence, “foreign” is non-gradable because it refers to a particular policy.

Example 2:

1. Gradable - This novel is very interesting.

2. Non-gradable - This novel is absolutely excellent.

Example 3: 

1. That's a very good idea.

2. That's completely a lunatic idea.

Example 4: 

1. The book exercise was quite hard to understand.

2. The book exercise was completely hard to understand.

So, we understand the concept of graded and non-graded adjectives. Please note that you are not required to memorize each and every word of the gradable and non-gradable adjective. It’s because once you understand this concept, it will be easy for you to solve this portion in your entrance exam.