143 Adjectives That Start With T

T is the letter of temperament. It holds more words for how somebody is holding themselves — tense, terse, testy, touchy, taciturn, tranquil — than almost any other. This page gathers 143 adjectives that start with T, sorted by the job you need doing rather than by whether the word flatters, because most of them can do either.

Each has a short meaning. If you already know what you are describing, go straight to that section.

All 143 adjectives at a glance

tactful, tough-minded, temperate, tactless, talented, talkative, tame, temperamental, tenacious, tender, tense, terse, testy, thankful, thick-skinned, thin-skinned, thorough, thoughtful, thoughtless, thrifty, tidy, timid, tireless, tolerant, touchy, tough, tranquil, treacherous, trusting, trustworthy, truthful, turbulent, twitchy, tyrannical, tenderhearted, tight-lipped, timely, traditional, transparent, troubled, triumphant, tall, towering, tangible, tattered, technical, temporary, tepid, tiring, terrestrial, textured, thick, thin, thorny, threadbare, tidal, tight, timeless, tinny, tiny, topical, torrential, total, toxic, traceable, transient, translucent, trivial, tropical, truncated, triumphal, tolerable, tubular, twinkly, turquoise, twisted, twofold, typical, thankless, troublesome, tardy, theatrical, thermal, tribal, tenuous, temporal, terminal, titanic, tantalising, tangled, teeming, toothsome, terraced, terrified, thrilled, tired, touched, traumatized, tremulous, trepidatious, tuned-in, tearful, tempestuous, tentative, tetchy, threatened, thunderstruck, ticklish, tongue-tied, tortured, tremendous, trustful, tumultuous, thirsty, tacit, tenebrous, torrid, thrasonical, tellurian, turbid, taciturn, tantamount, tawdry, temerarious, tenable, tendentious, terpsichorean, tessellated, timorous, titular, torpid, tortuous, tractable, transcendent, transitory, trenchant, truculent, tumid, turgid, tutelary, twee, typographic, tensile

For people

Character and manner. Thick-skinned and thin-skinned are the clearest opposite pair the letter offers, and both are about the same thing: what reaches someone.

For places and things

Objects, materials and conditions. Transparent is listed under people, where it means open and easily understood; the see-through sense belongs here, and the two are worth keeping apart.

For feelings and mood

Mostly states rather than settled traits. Several are past participles — touched — which carry the sense of something having been done to the person.

Rare and unusual

Worth knowing even if rarely used. Turgid is the most misused word here: it means swollen, and by extension pompously overwritten — not dull.

Positive and negative at a glance

Sorting by job rather than by tone means compliments and criticisms sit side by side above. Here they are separated, using words already defined on this page.

The middle column is not simply the opposite of the first. Tenacious appears twice on purpose: the same refusal to let go reads as determination in a colleague and as obstinacy in an opponent.

Using them in a sentence

• He was taciturn rather than timid, and it took people a year to tell the difference.
• The room was tepid, threadbare and oddly tranquil.
• She left troubled but not tearful — there is a distance between those two.
• A tenuous argument delivered in a trenchant tone, which almost worked.
• The carpet was threadbare, the excuse more so.

Related guides

• Adjectives for talking — where terse, taciturn and tongue-tied belong.
• Adjectives for tired — the fuller range between tired and torpid.
• Adjectives for touch — expands the texture words in the things section.
• Adjectives for trees — for thorny, tangled and towering.
• Adjectives for things — the general object vocabulary this letter feeds into.
• Adjectives for trips — pairs with transient, tropical and tiring.

Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.