Describing Qualities — B1 English Vocabulary

Using describing qualities words in English

Adjectives of size and texture look like the easiest thing on this list until you try to make them stronger. English divides adjectives into two classes: ordinary ones like big, which take very, and extreme ones like enormous, which do not. Saying very enormous is not quite an error, but it marks you out immediately. The correct intensifier for the extreme group is absolutely, and knowing which class a word belongs to is most of this topic.

What to watch out for

• Very big, but absolutely enormous

  Ordinary adjectives are gradable and take very, quite, fairly, a bit: very big, quite narrow, fairly deep. Extreme adjectives already contain the idea of very, so they take absolutely, completely or totally instead: absolutely enormous, absolutely tiny, absolutely huge. On this list, enormous, huge and tiny are the extreme ones.

• These adjectives come in opposite pairs

  Learning them in pairs halves the work and fixes the meanings: narrow and wide, shallow and deep, smooth and rough, sharp and blunt, heavy and light, stiff and flexible. Note that sharp and blunt both have figurative uses about people — a sharp mind, a blunt reply — and the second is not a compliment.

• The noun forms often change the vowel

  Deep gives depth, wide gives width, long gives length, strong gives strength, high gives height. This small group changes the vowel sound as well as adding -th, which is why they are rarely guessed correctly. Most other adjectives on this list simply take -ness: smoothness, roughness, heaviness, stiffness.

Words learners mix up

Three tables: two adjectives that look like one word and blame different things, four words for how often something occurs, and the surface adjectives whose figurative uses are commoner than their literal ones.

Collocations that sound natural

Six adjectives that carry precise weight in written English. Three of them appear on labels and in reports far more than in conversation.

• accurate

  highly accuratean accurate descriptionaccurate to within a metreaccuracy matters

  Free from error, and it goes with measurements, descriptions and reports. The intensifier is highly rather than very in careful writing, and the noun accuracy is uncountable. Precise is a near neighbour meaning exact rather than correct.

• vague

  a vague ideavaguely familiarbe vague about the detailsa vague memory

  Not clear or definite, and mildly critical when said about somebody’s answer. Vaguely familiar means you almost recognise something, and the gu spelling is silent enough that the word is often misspelled.

• genuine

  a genuine mistakegenuine leathergenuinely sorrya genuine concern

  Real rather than pretended, and about a person it means sincere. A genuine mistake is a fixed and rather generous phrase meaning nobody meant any harm, and it is the standard British way of forgiving an error.

• fragile

  fragile itemshandle with carea fragile peacefragile health

  Easily broken, and it appears on parcels as a one-word instruction. The figurative uses are common in news writing: a fragile peace and a fragile recovery both mean something that could still collapse.

• powerful

  a powerful argumenta powerful enginepowerful evidencea powerful position

  It covers physical force, influence and persuasiveness alike, which makes it unusually flexible. Note that strong and powerful are not interchangeable: tea is strong, an engine is powerful, and an argument can be either.

• crowded

  a crowded roomcrowded with touristsovercrowded housinga crowded market

  Full of people, and what fills it takes with. Overcrowded with the prefix is always a criticism and appears in official writing about housing and transport, where crowded alone is merely descriptive.

See the full B1 collocations list →

Where each word belongs

Seven adjectives with a second sense, a hidden judgement or a home in one particular kind of writing. Descriptive vocabulary is where an unexpected extra meaning does the most quiet damage.

• ancientHistory · and a joke about ageProperly it means from thousands of years ago, as in ancient Greece and ancient history. British conversation uses it as cheerful exaggeration about anything old: this laptop is ancient. The two uses never get confused because the scale is so different.
• preciousTwo senses · one of them criticalValuable and irreplaceable — precious metals, precious time — which is warm and positive. But describing a person or their manner as precious means affected and over-refined, which is a criticism, so the context has to carry the meaning.
• remarkableWriting · and it means exactly what it saysWorth remarking on, and therefore genuinely unusual rather than merely good. It is strong praise in a reference or a review and reads as overstatement about anything ordinary. The adverb remarkably works as a strong intensifier.
• uselessTwo senses · and harsh about peopleAbout an object it simply means it does not work. About a person it is a real insult in British English, considerably heavier than saying somebody is not very good. The light self-critical version is I am useless at maths, which is a joke.
• realisticTwo senses · art and expectationsIn art it means closely resembling real life. About plans it means sensible and achievable, which is the commoner use: be realistic about the deadline. The noun realism belongs mostly to the first sense.
• spaciousEstate-agent EnglishHaving plenty of room, and it lives almost entirely in property adverts and hotel descriptions. In conversation people say big or roomy. British property listings have used it so heavily that readers now discount it slightly.
• steepTwo senses · hills and pricesRising sharply, which is why a hill and a graph can both be steep. About a price it means unreasonably high — fifty pounds seems a bit steep — and that use is informal, very British and always a complaint.

Sentences to try

Four frames using the intensifier rule. Try each one with the wrong intensifier and hear the difference.

• The house is enormous — absolutely huge, in fact.
• The river is very wide here but surprisingly shallow.
• Be careful: the knife is extremely sharp.
• The path becomes quite steep near the top.

Questions about describing qualities vocabulary