2.25 gradability

Qualitative adjectives are gradable, which means that the person or thing referred to can have more or less of the quality mentioned.

2.26

The usual way in which you can indicate the amount of a quality that something or someone has is by using submodifiers such as 'very' and 'rather' in front of qualitative adjectives. This is explained in paragraphs 2.145 to 2.161.

2.27

The other way in which you can indicate the amount of a quality that something or someone has is by using a comparative, such as 'bigger', and 'more interesting', or a superlative, such as 'the biggest', and 'the most interesting'. Comparatives and superlatives are explained in paragraphs 2.108 to 2.127.

2.28

Here is a list of qualitative adjectives:

• active, angry, anxious, appropriate, attractive, bad, beautiful, big, brief, bright, broad, busy, calm, careful, cheap, clean, clear, close, cold, comfortable, common, complex, cool, curious, dangerous, dark, dear, deep, determined, different, difficult, dirty, dry, easy, effective, efficient, expensive, fair, familiar, famous, fast, fat, fine, firm, flat, frank, free, fresh, friendly, frightened, funny, good, great, happy, hard, heavy, high, hot, important, interesting, kind, large, late, light, likely, long, loose, loud, lovely, low, lucky, narrow, nervous, new, nice, obvious, odd, old, pale, patient, plain, pleasant, poor, popular, powerful, pretty, proud, quick, quiet, rare, reasonable, rich, rough, sad, safe, sensible, serious, sharp, shocked, short, sick, significant, silly, simple, slow, small, soft, special, steady, strange, strong, stupid, successful, suitable, sure, surprised, sweet, tall, terrible, thick, thin, tight, tiny, tired, typical, understanding, useful, violent, warm, weak, wet, wide, wild, worried, young