Chapter CLXII: Section III: Derivation of Adjectives

In _English_, Adjectives are derived from nouns, from adjectives, from verbs, or from participles.

I. Adjectives are derived from _Nouns_ in several different ways:--

1. By the adding of _ous, ious, eous, y, ey, ic, al, ical_ or _ine_: (sometimes with an omission or change of some of the final letters:) as, _danger, dangerous; glory, glorious; right, righteous; rock, rocky; clay, clayey; poet, poetic_, or _poetical; nation, national; method, methodical; vertex, vertical; clergy, clerical; adamant, adamantine_. Adjectives thus formed, generally apply the properties of their primitives, to the nouns to which they relate.

2. By the adding of _ful_: as, _fear, fearful; cheer, cheerful; grace, graceful; shame, shameful; power, powerful_. These come almost entirely from personal qualities or feelings, and denote abundance.

3. By the adding of _some_: as, _burden, burdensome; game, gamesome; toil, toilsome_. These denote plenty, but do not exaggerate.

4. By the adding of _en_: as, _oak, oaken; silk, silken; wheat, wheaten; oat, oaten; hemp, hempen_. Here the derivative denotes the matter of which something is made.

5. By the adding of _ly_ or _ish_: as, _friend, friendly; gentleman, gentlemanly; child, childish; prude, prudish_. These denote resemblance. The termination _ly_ signifies _like_.

6. By the adding of _able_ or _ible_: as, _fashion, fashionable; access, accessible_. But these terminations are generally, and more properly, added to verbs. See Obs. 17th, 18th, &c., on the Rules for Spelling.

7. By the adding of _less_: as, _house, houseless; death, deathless; sleep, sleepless; bottom, bottomless_. These denote privation or exemption--the absence of what is named by the primitive.

8. By the adding of _ed_: as, _saint, sainted; bigot, bigoted; mast, masted; wit, witted_. These have a resemblance to participles, and some of them are rarely used, except when joined with some other word to form a compound adjective: as, _three-sided, bare-footed, long-eared, hundred-handed, flat-nosed, hard-hearted, marble-hearted, chicken-hearted_.

9. Adjectives coming from proper names, take various terminations: as, _America, American; England, English; Dane, Danish; Portugal, Portuguese; Plato, Platonic_.

10. Nouns are often converted into adjectives, without change of termination: as, _paper_ currency; a _gold_ chain; _silver_ knee-buckles.

II. Adjectives are derived from _Adjectives_ in several different ways:--

1. By the adding of _ish_ or _some_: as, _white, whitish; green, greenish; lone, lonesome; glad, gladsome_. These denote quality with some diminution.

2. By the prefixing of _dis, in_, or _un_: as, _honest, dishonest; consistent, inconsistent; wise, unwise_. These express a negation of the quality denoted by their primitives.

3. By the adding of _y_ or _ly_: as, _swarth, swarthy; good, goodly_. Of these there are but few; for almost all the derivatives of the latter form are adverbs.

III. Adjectives are derived from _Verbs_ in several different ways:--

1. By the adding of _able_ or _ible_: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, _perish, perishable; vary, variable; convert, convertible; divide, divisible_, or _dividable_. These, according to their analogy, have usually a passive import, and denote susceptibility of receiving action. 2. By the adding of _ive_ or _ory_: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, _elect, elective; interrogate, interrogative, interrogatory; defend, defensive; defame, defamatory; explain, explanatory_.

3. Words ending in _ate_, are mostly verbs; but some of them may be employed as adjectives, in the same form, especially in poetry; as, _reprobate, complicate_.

IV. Adjectives are derived from _Participles_, not by suffixes, but in these ways:--

1. By the prefixing of _un_, meaning _not_; as, _unyielding, unregarded, unreserved, unendowed, unendeared, unendorsed, unencountered, unencumbered, undisheartened, undishonoured_. Of this sort there are very many.

2. By a combining of the participle with some word which does not belong to the verb; as, _way-faring, hollow-sounding, long-drawn, deep-laid, dear-purchased, down-trodden_. These, too, are numerous.

3. Participles often become adjectives without change of form. Such adjectives are distinguished from participles by their construction alone: as, "A _lasting_ ornament;"--"The _starving_ chymist;"--"Words of _learned_ length;"--"With _counterfeited_ glee."