Improve Your Vocabulary: 25 English adjectives to describe people

Improve your vocabulary and the way you speak by learning these English adjectives! Adjectives are words that modify nouns by describing a particular quality of something. In this lesson, you will learn a lot of useful vocabulary that will allow you to describe people. It’s a good idea to learn many adjectives, even adjectives that are similar in meaning. Synonyms help you express yourself in a more accurate, precise, and interesting way. For example, if someone is tall and thin, you could say that person is “scrawny”. If a woman is sad and grumpy, you could say she is “gloomy”. I will teach you words like “huge”, “agile”, “feeble”, “greasy”, “bonny”, “plump”, “smart”, “uncouth”, “grubby”, “immaculate”, and more. We will also talk about which words describe a person in a good way or a bad way. There is new vocabulary for English learners of all levels in this lesson! Test your knowledge by taking the quiz: https://www.engvid.com/25-english-adj...

NEXT, watch these lessons to take your learning even further:

1. Learn 18 Phrasal Verbs for compliments & criticism:    • Learn 18 English PHRASAL VERBS for complim...  

2. 50 adjectives to describe what you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste:    • Improve your Vocabulary: 50 adjectives to ...  

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, there, and welcome back to engVid. Today we are looking at 25 words that can be used to describe people. This video is mainly for those at the beginning of their journey learning English; but, of course, you may just pick up a few new words if you're an intermediate, too.

So, these are predominantly adjectives. Okay? And what we are going to be doing is seeing whether they say a good thing about someone or a bad thing about someone. Okay. So, if it says a good thing about someone, we'll put a smiley face; if it puts a bad impression about someone, we'll put an unhappy face.

First word: "huge". Now, do you think it would be good to be called "huge"? If you're a guy? If you're a girl? It probably depends. Most guys want to go to the gym and get really big; but many girls, the sort of stereotypical perceived body perfection is slightly smaller. So, I will put... Say it to a guy; not a girl.

"Agile". "Agile" means that you are graceful. If you think of the animal, the deer, it moves very gracefully. So, "agile", I think that's a positive thing to say to someone.

"Feeble". "Feeble" means weak; pathetic. No one wants to be called "feeble". If I was going to describe someone as feeble, I would say: "The Liverpool football player was feeble in their effort to stop the goal."

"Tasteful". "Full" means full of; you have a lot of it. "Taste" means being able to choose good things; having good taste in art, in music, in food, in clothes. Okay? If you're tasteful, it means you make good decisions. Obviously we want to be described as being tasteful.

"Slight" means small. Okay? So, "slight" sounds like we're not very important; we're just sort of a bit small. We don't want to be called "slight".

"Dishevelled". "Dishevelled". This means messy. Okay? Unorganized; a bit chaotic. We don't want to be called "dishevelled".

"Grubby". "Grubby" is another word for dirty. Generally, people don't want to be described as being dirty.

"Unkempt". "Unkempt", so the prefix "un" means not; "kempt" means looked after. So, if you are unkempt, we get the idea that maybe the person has not washed for some time, they haven't brushed their teeth, their clothes are falling apart. So, we don't want to be unkempt.

Grease. "Greasy", "greasy". Maybe you have seen "Greased Lightning", the song from the hit Grease. So, "Greased Lightning", the car is really slick and it's all kind of new, and it's going to impress everyone. But if we're applying grease to a person, it's not such a good thing. We don't want kind of petrol and things in our... In our hair. We don't want our skin to be greasy. So, this has two meanings: "Greasy" in terms of sort of hair and skin, but also "greasy" means we don't really trust that person; they're a little bit suspicious.

"Bonny". "Bonny" generally is applied to a baby. You would say: "That's a bonny baby." It means: Good-looking; looks healthy.

"Attractive". Okay? If we're attracted to something, we want to go towards it. Yeah? We want people to like us, we want to... We want to be attract-... Attractive.

"Exquisite" - one of my favourite words. "Exquisite" means sort of near perfection, just absolutely fantastic. Of course, we all want to be exquisite.

"Youthful". Again, the suffix: "ful" meaning full of; "youth", young, full of young energy, lots of... You know, really playful. Thing of Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh who goes boinging over trees and things. "Youthful" is fun. You want to be fun. […]