How to Change a Noun to an Adjective

Changing a Noun to an Adjective

A noun is a person, place or thing; an adjective modifies or describes the noun. The girl is a beauty -- beauty being a noun. The girl can also be beautiful -- beautiful, in this case, being an adjective. Turning a noun into an adjective requires only a few minor changes to the ending of a word. Nouns and adjectives are common in the English language and in English grammar and are used as parts of speech like adverbs.

These transitions of nouns to adjectives are common when learning English, as one becomes more common with superlative adjectives, past participles, prepositions, action verbs, phrasal verbs, and present participles as well. These changes can be determiners of objects and settings, depending on the usage.

Adding Suffixes

The simplest way, and the best general rule, to turn a noun into an adjective is to add suffixes to the end of the root word. The most common suffixes used to create adjectives are -ly, -able, -al, -ous, -ary, -ful, -ic, -ish, -less, -like and -y. Other noun to adjective suffixes can include -ial, and -ical. When including the endings, remove the hyphens listed in the examples.

For example, turn the noun "danger" into the adjective "dangerous" by adding the suffix -ous. Other examples include: "The lady enjoys magic; however, she is not very magical herself." "Those who have health are considered healthy, while those who follow fashion are thought of as fashionable." In these instances, the root nouns were turned into adjectives by adding appropriate suffixes. Adjective forms can vary depending on the sentence usage.

Modifications to Make It Work

Sometimes you will have to make slight modifications to the root noun if it ends in -e, -y or -t.

For example, if the noun is "offense," the adjective is "offensive." In this case, drop the -e from the noun and add -ive to create the adjective through the final consonant. Learners often use adjective endings to change the meaning or tense of the word. To change nouns, suffixes and modifications are needed to properly follow English language standards. Some spelling changes are also common in some word formations and changes.