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Spanish adjectives

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Inflection and usage

Spanish adjectives can be broadly divided into two groups: those whose lemma (the base form, the form found in dictionaries) ends in -o, and those whose lemma does not. The former generally inflect for both gender and number; the latter generally inflect just for number. Frío ("cold"), for example, inflects for both gender and number. When it is used with a masculine singular noun, the masculine singular form frío (the lemma) is used. When it is used with a feminine singular noun, it becomes fría; -a is generally the feminine singular ending for adjectives that inflect for gender. When it is used with a masculine plural noun, it becomes fríos, and when it is used with a feminine plural noun, it becomes frías; -s is the plural marker for both the masculine and feminine with adjectives that inflect for gender. Thus:

  • frío ("cold") → frío, fría, fríos, frías
  • pequeño ("small") → pequeño, pequeña, pequeños, pequeñas
  • rojo ("red") → rojo, roja, rojos, rojas

Adjectives whose lemma does not end in -o, however, inflect differently. These adjectives almost always inflect only for number. -s is once again the plural marker, and if the lemma ends in a consonant, the adjective takes -es in the plural. Thus:

  • caliente ("hot") → caliente, caliente, calientes, calientes
  • formal ("formal") → formal, formal, formales, formales
  • verde ("green") → verde, verde, verdes, verdes

This division into two groups is a generalization, however. There are many examples, such as the adjective español itself, of adjectives whose lemmas do not end in -o but nevertheless take -a in the feminine singular as well as -as in the feminine plural and thus have four forms: in the case of español, española, españoles, españolas. There are also adjectives that do not inflect at all (generally words borrowed from other languages, such as the French beige (also Hispanicised to beis)).

Spanish adjectives are very similar to nouns and are often interchangeable with them. Bare adjectives can be used with articles and thus function as nouns where English would require nominalization using the pronoun one(s). For example:

  • El rojo va aquí/acá, ¿no? = "The red one goes here, doesn't it?"
  • Tenemos que tirar las estropeadas = "We have to throw away the broken ones"

Masculine singular adjectives can also be used with the neuter article lo to signify "the [adjective] thing, the [adjective] part". Thus:

  • lo extraño = "the strange thing, the strange part"
  • lo inusual = "the unusual thing, the unusual part"

The only inflectionally irregular adjectives in Spanish are those that have irregular comparative forms, and only four do.

Spanish adjectives are generally postpositive, that is, they come after the noun they modify. Thus el libro largo ("the long book"), la casa grande ("the big house"), los hombres altos ("the tall men"), etc. There are, however, a small number of adjectives, including all ordinal numerals as well as words such as otro ("other") and todo ("all"), that must be placed before the noun they modify. There are also a small number that can be placed both before and after the noun and that change meaning according to that positioning, and some adjectives, especially those that form something of a fixed phrase with the noun (e.g. oscura noche ("dark night"), alta montaña ("high mountain")), can be placed before or after the noun with little change in meaning.

Apocope

A small number of adjectives have apocopic forms: forms in which the final sound or two is dropped in certain environments. They are:

Apocopic forms are used even when the word does not come immediately before the noun: algún fresco pan ("some fresh bread"), el primer gran árbol ("the first big tree"), ningún otro hombre ("no other man"), etc. In the case of grande, which is the only apocopic adjective with regular comparative and superlative forms (más grande and el más grande, respectively), the comparative and superlative apocopate in the same manner as the positive: la más gran casa but la casa más grande, el más gran coche de los dos but el coche más grande de los dos, etc. If a conjunction intervenes between the adjective and the noun, however, apocopic forms are not used: esta grande y bella casa ("this big and beautiful house"), el primero o segundo día ("the first or second day"), etc.

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