| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| adjective |
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| SYLLABICATION: | ad·jec·tive |
| PRONUNCIATION: |   j  k-tv |
| NOUN: | abbr. a. or adj. 1. The part of speech that modifies a noun or other substantive by limiting, qualifying, or specifying and distinguished in English morphologically by one of several suffixes, such as -able, -ous, -er, and -est, or syntactically by position directly preceding a noun or nominal phrase. 2. Any of the words belonging to this part of speech, such as white in the phrase a white house. | | ADJECTIVE: | 1. Adjectival: an adjective clause. 2. Law Prescriptive; remedial: adjective law. 3. Not standing alone; derivative or dependent. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French adjectif, from Late Latin adiect vus, from adiectus, past participle of adicere, to add to : ad-, ad- + iacere, to throw; see y - in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | adjec·tive·ly —ADVERB
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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