How to Use Descriptive Adjectives to Describe Breakfast

If you've been reading about adjectives -- words that modify nouns and pronouns -- your teacher might have assigned you to use these parts of speech to describe breakfast. Descriptive adjectives supply an attribute to a noun and enhance its meaning. They stand out because they are found next to the word they describe, as in a lighthearted woman, solemn man and carefree child.

Descriptive Two-Step

Outline the contents of a hearty breakfast: eggs, meat, bread, potatoes and a beverage, which sounds rather bland. Launch your descriptive two-step by first describing the contents, or explaining what kind of eggs, meat, bread, potatoes and beverage await you. In this case, you might have scrambled eggs, sausage patties, waffles, red potatoes and orange juice. That's a beginning.

Second Stab

Put some verve into your two-step by explaining the type, quantity, texture or preparation method of the breakfast menu. You might embellish your description by referring to two soft, scrambled eggs, three juicy sausage patties, two Belgian waffles, oven-fried red potatoes and Florida orange juice.

Final Helping

Take one more pass at your breakfast menu and enhance it where you can, with good taste. Avoid adjectives such as “delicious” and “tempting,” which are value words -- subject to opinion -- and obvious and empty. If you're writing a paragraph about your breakfast menu, you might describe it this way: “It was a feast for the eyes and a certain delight for the palate: two soft scrambled eggs, dotted with cheddar cheese; three juicy sausage patties, flecked with red pepper; two Belgian waffles, drizzled with Vermont-fresh maple syrup; oven-fried red potatoes, laced with bacon and green onion; and ice cold Florida orange juice.”