Author
Nathan Cole writes the adjective guides and word lists on Grammar Simplified. Every guide he publishes is checked against Merriam-Webster for spelling and usage, the Chicago Manual of Style for punctuation, and the AP Stylebook where a convention is specific to web writing. Where a rule is genuinely disputed among those authorities, he says so in the guide rather than picking a side quietly. Corrections are welcome and get acted on — see the editorial policy.
964 guides published
Integrity is hard to describe because most of the words for it describe only part of it. Honest covers what a person says. Consistent covers whether they say it on a bad day too. Neither covers the part that costs something. This page gives 60 adjectives for integrity, sorted into the three things the idea…
Y is a small letter, and a page that pretends otherwise is padding. English has a few dozen adjectives beginning with Y, and 12 of them cluster around just three ideas: age, the colour yellow, and noises made by animals and by people behaving like them. This page lists 28 adjectives that start with Y…
L is unusually rich in words for pace — languid, lethargic, leisurely, lively, listless — and for several of them the only difference is whether the slowness is a pleasure or a complaint. This page lists 134 adjectives that start with L, grouped by the job each does. Every word has a plain meaning beside…
Close to three fifths of the adjectives in this letter are negations — in-, im- and ir- attached to a word that already existed. That makes I unusually easy to use and unusually easy to use lazily: not accurate and inaccurate are not quite the same sentence, and the second only earns its place when…
Most words used about students are used badly. Bright praises a fixed quality the student did nothing to earn; hard-working — which is not in the list below, and is left out on purpose — praises effort so vaguely that it can mean anything. This page gives 88 adjectives for students, sorted by what they…
R is the letter of temperament under pressure. It holds an unusual number of words for how somebody behaves when things are difficult — resilient, resolute, reckless, resigned, relentless, remorseless — and it carries praise and criticism in roughly equal measure. This page lists 143 adjectives that start with R, sorted by the job you…
Writing about motherhood fails in one of two directions. Either every sentence reaches for selfless and unconditional until the words stop registering, or it goes so far the other way that the difficulty is all that is left. This page gives 80 words to describe motherhood, sorted into the five things people are usually trying…
O is a small letter with a heavy accent. Its best-known words are almost all complaints — obnoxious, officious, obstinate, overbearing, ostentatious — and the handful of compliments it offers tend to be quiet ones: obliging, observant, orderly. This page lists 112 adjectives that start with O, grouped by the job each does, with a…
The question comes in three forms — describe yourself, three words to describe yourself, how would a friend describe you — and they all fail the same way: people reach for hard-working, passionate and team player, which tell a listener nothing because everybody says them. This page gives 122 words to describe yourself, sorted by…
M is the letter of judgement. It holds an unusual number of words that pass a verdict while pretending to describe — mediocre, mawkish, meddlesome, measly, mercenary — and almost as many that praise without gushing: measured, methodical, magnanimous. This page lists 149 adjectives that start with M, each with its meaning and a short…
Grammar Simplified
Plain-English grammar guides and curated adjective lists. Free to read, checked against Merriam-Webster, Chicago and AP before publication.
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