Absolute adjectives – Can something be very correct?

When describing things we use adjectives (like big, strong, or colourful). To say how much of that description there is we use modifiers (like very big, extremely strong, or quite colourful).

There are some adjectives in the English language that cannot logically be modified. Let’s take the word “dead” as an example. Can someone be “very dead”? Was your childhood hamster “slightly dead” when you buried it in the garden? Hopefully it was just… dead. An animal is either dead or alive, there are no amounts of dead that you can use a modifier to describe. These adjectives which cannot be modified are called “Absolute Adjectives”. It can help to think of them as either true or not true, there are no grey areas.

Other absolute adjectives in English:

inferior

ultimate

chemical

favourite

nuclear

unique

complete

final

perfect

unknown

correct

furious

possible

whole

dead

gigantic

pregnant

wonderful

brilliant

false

absolute

digital

gorgeous

ridiculous

alive

enormous

hilarious

superior

ancient

entire

horrible

terrible

awful

equal

huge

tiny

basic

excellent

incredible

true

Thank you to BKA content for this helpful list of absolute adjectives, you can check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/y5b9krmz

There are ways to modify absolute adjectives, we just have to use modifiers that describe how “complete” your adjective is.

• Almost perfect (Most of it is perfect but some is not)

• Completely false (It is all false)

• Utterly ridiculous (It is all ridiculous)

• Somewhat basic (Some of it is basic).

That’s today’s mini English lesson, I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to try a free trial English lesson with me contact me at www.wrightenglish.com/contact and we can book you in!

Don’t forget for all of September you get another free lesson for every friend who pays for a lesson with me!