 Regular and extreme adjectives in English from espressoenglish.net Adjectives are words that describe the qualities of something. Some adjectives in English are gradeable. That means you can have different degrees or levels of that quality. For example, the weather can be a little cold, rather cold, very cold, or extremely cold. Extreme adjectives are words that automatically include the word extremely. For example, freezing means extremely cold. The weather can't be a little bit freezing or very freezing, because the word freezing itself automatically means extremely cold. Here are some examples of regular and extreme adjectives. Furious means extremely angry. Awful, terrible, and horrible mean extremely bad. Huge, giant, and gigantic mean extremely big. Spotless means extremely clean. Packed means extremely crowded. Filthy means extremely dirty. Hilarious means extremely funny. Wonderful, fantastic, excellent, terrific, marvelous, and many other words mean extremely good. Boiling means extremely hot. Starving means extremely hungry. Fascinating means extremely interesting. Ancient means extremely old. Gorgeous means extremely pretty. Terrifying means extremely scary. Tiny means extremely small. Astounding means extremely surprising. Exhausted means extremely tired. And hideous means extremely ugly. There are some special rules for extreme adjectives. First, we don't use comparatives or superlatives. Regular adjectives we can compare to or more things. For example, my house is big. My neighbor's house is bigger than mine. My parent's house is the biggest house on the street. Bigger is the comparative form and the biggest is the superlative form. But with extreme adjectives we don't use comparatives and superlatives. You can say my parent's house is enormous, but you can't say more enormous or the most enormous. The second special rule with extreme adjectives is that we use different adverbs. With regular adjectives we can use these adverbs. A little, a bit, slightly, fairly, rather. Very, extremely, immensely, intensely and hugely. For example, I'm rather hungry. I'm very hungry. You can't use any of these words with extreme adjectives. You can't say I'm rather starving or I'm very starving. With extreme adjectives there are different adverbs used to add emphasis like absolutely, completely and utterly. So you can say I'm absolutely starving. We're completely exhausted. The movie was utterly terrifying. Again, remember you can't say very terrifying because terrifying is an extreme adjective. The words really and pretty can be used with both regular and extreme adjectives. These words are more common in spoken English. For example, you can say this room is pretty dirty or this room is pretty filthy. Filthy is the extreme adjective, but we can use the adverb pretty with both. The party is really crowded. The party is really packed. Again, packed is an extreme adjective, but we use the word really to give some extra emphasis. Another type of extreme adjective is called an absolute adjective. These are words that are either yes or no. For example, dead. You can't be a little bit dead or very dead. Either yes you are dead or no you're not dead. Here are some examples of absolute adjectives and their opposites. Complete, incomplete, equal, unequal, essential, non-essential, dead, alive, fatal, not fatal, first, last or final, full, empty, ideal, not ideal, impossible, possible, infinite, finite, married, single, divorced, separated, widowed, etc. Perfect, imperfect, pregnant, not pregnant, unique, not unique, universal, not universal, unknown, known, true, false. Now, native speakers don't always follow the rules, so you might hear expressions like this. That's very true. It's the very first time. This shirt is more unique than that one. These sentences are not technically correct because we shouldn't use the words very or more with absolute adjectives. But like I said, native speakers don't always follow the rules. Now you can take the quiz at the bottom of the lesson to test your knowledge of extreme adjectives. Thanks for watching English Tips from Espresso English. If you liked this video, please share it.