Adjectives – GCSE Latin WJEC Revision

Adjectives in Latin agree with the nouns they describe in gender, number and case. This means they must have the same masculine, feminine or neuter ending, the same singular or plural ending and be in the same case as the noun.
First and second declension adjectives have endings similar to first and second declension nouns, but they apply to all three genders.
Third declension adjectives have one set of endings for masculine/feminine and another for neuter.

Latin adjectives also have comparative and superlative forms to express the relative degrees of a quality.
The comparative of adjectives in Latin is often formed by adding ‘-ior’ (for both masculine and feminine) or ‘-ius’ (neuter) to the base of the word. The comparative adjective behaves like a third declension adjective.
To express the superlative (highest degree) of an adjective, ‘-issimus’ (masculine), ‘-issima’ (feminine) or ‘-issimum’ (neuter) is added to the base of the word. The superlative behaves like a first and second declension adjective.
Bear in mind that there are irregular comparatives and superlatives just like in English (e.g. ‘good’, ‘better’, ‘best’).

Adjectives can serve to describe the quality of a noun (Big cat: felis magna), identify a characteristic (Noble man: vir nobilis) or to express possession (My book: liber meus)
In Latin, unlike English, the adjective usually follows the noun it modifies. For example, ‘a good man’ is homo bonus and ‘good men’ is homines boni.
However, the position of adjectives is not fixed and can be varied to achieve different effects, so it is important to look at the endings to see what word the adjective is describing.

Remember, the biggest hurdle for English speakers learning Latin is to understand that Latin adjectives must agree with their nouns in gender, number, and case.
Even though English adjectives do not change form, in Latin they do. For example, felis magna changes to felis magnum when it is neuter, and felis magnae for the feminine plural.
This rule, although difficult for English speakers to grasp initially, allows for much greater flexibility in sentence construction in Latin.