常用形容词与名词的搭配

Intensifying Adjectives

When describing physical objects you can use a wide variety of adjectives such as: large, big, tiny, minuscule, small, etc. However, when describing nouns that are not physical (e.g. joy, anger, wealth) you need to pay careful attention to the choice of intensifying adjectives. This feature provides a guide to the use of the most common intensifying adjectives for non-physical nouns.

Absolute / Complete / Total / Utter： Absolute, complete, total and utter are used to express strong feelings, extreme situations, and other events - especially negative experiences.

absolute agony

complete astonishment

total bliss

(an) utter catastrophe

absolute despair

total ecstasy

utter fury

a complete idiot

utter loathing

total madness

Big: Big tends to describe a happening or a type of person. It is not usually used with uncountable nouns.

Happenings

a big decision

a big disappointment

a big improvement

a big mistake

a big surprise

Types of Persons

a big eater

a big dreamer

a big drinker

a big spender

a big talker

Great: Great usually describes nouns which express feelings or qualities.

great admiration

great anger

in great detail

(a) great disappointment

great enjoyment

great excitement

a great failure

great fun

great happiness

great joy

at great length

a great number (of)

great power

great pride

a great quantity (of)

great sensitivity

great skill

great strength

great understanding

great wealth

Large: Large is often used with nouns concerning numbers and measurements. It is not usually used with uncountable nouns.

a large amount

a large number (of)

a large population

a large proportion

a large quantity

a large scale

Common Adjective Collocations

A collocation is a word pair, in this case adjective and noun, that always goes together. There are no specific rules for these collocations, however, it is important to learn some of the standard collocations. Here is a guide to collocations with deep, heavy, high (low) and strong.

Deep deep depression

deep devotion

a deep feeling

deep pockets

deep sleep

in deep thought

in deep trouble

Heavy

a heavy drinker

heavy rain

a heavy sleeper

a heavy smoker

heavy snow

heavy traffic

High - Low. Notice that a number of nouns (but not all) which take 'high' also take 'low'.

high - or low - cost

high - or low - density

high - or low - energy

high - or low - esteem

a high - or low - expectation (of)

a high - or low - level (of)

a high - or low - opinion (of someone or something)

high - or low - pressure

a - or low - high price

high quality

high speed

Strong

strong criticism

strong denial

a strong feeling

a strong opinion (about something)

a strong sense (of)

a strong smell

a strong taste