French Grammar - Adjectives

Adjectives

An adjective agrees in gender and number with the noun it modifies. The adjective's masculine singular form is its default form; this is the form listed in dictionaries, and is typically the form used when the adjective is used as a noun. Most adjectives' feminine singular forms are formed from their masculine singular forms by adding -e, though some common endings have different patterns; adjectives ending in -eux, for example, typically have feminine singular forms ending in -euse. Similarly, most adjectives' masculine and feminine plural forms are formed from their corresponding singular forms by adding -s, though sometimes -x is added instead, and nothing is added if the corresponding singular form already ends in -s, -x, or -z.

Most adjectives, when used attributively, appear after their nouns: le vin rouge ("the red wine"). A number of adjectives, however (often, but not always, having to do with beauty, age, goodness, or size, a tendency summarized by the acronym "BAGS"), come before their nouns: une belle femme ("a beautiful woman"). With a few adjectives of the latter type, there are two masculine singular forms: one used before consonants (the default form), and one used before vowels. For example, the adjective beau ("beautiful") changes form from un beau garçon ("a handsome boy") to un bel homme ("a handsome man"). Some adjectives change position depending on their meaning, sometimes preceding their nouns and sometimes following them; for example, ancien means "former" when it precedes its noun, but "ancient" when it follows it. To give another example, un homme grand means "a tall man", un grand homme means "a great man".

Many compound words contain an adjective, such as belle-mère ("mother-in-law"; distinct from belle mère, "beautiful mother"). Some of them use an archaic form of the feminine adjective that lacks the final -e and sometimes show an apostrophe instead of a hyphen, such as grand' route ("main country road"; distinct from grande route, "long way") and grand-mère ("grandmother"; distinct from grande mère, "tall mother").