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Most Common English Adjectives

Guess the 25 most common adjectives in the English language according to the Oxford English Corpus
Quiz by kalbahamut
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Last updated: December 8, 2018
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First submittedMarch 10, 2013
Times taken5,317
Average score28.0%
Rating4.07
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Answer
good
new
first
last
long
Answer
great
little
own
other
old
Answer
right
big
high
different
small
Answer
large
next
early
young
important
Answer
few
public
bad
same
able
+5
Level 83
Mar 10, 2013
I'm surprised that "nice" and "fine" don't make the list as well as several other words, and it appears as though possessive adjectives are not included.
+2
Level 50
Apr 19, 2013
I tried "nice" a couple of times and persisted in doing so haha :)
+1
Level 37
Aug 2, 2014
"possessive adjectives" are actually "possessive pronouns"
+1
Level 88
Jan 1, 2021
They act as adjectives. My dog is brown.

They act as nouns. Yours is black.

Different usage experts toss it around to varying degrees.

+2
Level 23
Dec 8, 2014
IKR, I have said fine and nice a billion more times than i have said words like public
+2
Level 83
Jun 1, 2013
Also doesn't seem to include a lot of forms of adjectives like superlatives, ordinals, possessive adjectives, etc.
+1
Level 83
Jun 1, 2013
oh wait, actually there is an ordinal. But the other two are not.
+1
Level 37
Aug 2, 2014
The only superlatives that I can think of that would come close are "best" and "worst" which are used as nouns/pronouns as often as or more than they are used as adjectives.
+2
Level 83
Jan 6, 2014
If the Corpus included blogs written by teenage girls then I'm sure "amazing" would also be on here.
+4
Level 65
Jan 10, 2019
I tried awesome. and I think a certain swearword would probaly be there. Like i fell off my f*** chair to morning, then walked into the *** door, on my way to my **** car but I forgot my **** keys. That seems the way most people are talking haha.

That or: it's a nice afternoon for a nice little walk, we can have a nice cup of tea and then have a nice little talk. hahah

+1
Level 83
Jan 10, 2019
yeah but it's not about every day spoken English.
+4
Level 75
Jul 13, 2014
I was surprised to see the word "public". I don't hear it that often in everyday speech.
+1
Level 83
Jul 13, 2014
If you read over the comments on my Most Common Nouns quiz I think you'll understand why.
+1
Level 29
Dec 6, 2017
Maybe because it's used to describe many everyday things.

Public service/transportation/announcement/restrooms etc.

+3
Level 46
Jan 20, 2018
how about cool?
+2
Level 63
May 6, 2018
Finally - a quiz that President Trump would be good at! "Look at my BIG hands!" "I'm going to make America GREAT again!" "We don't like new"
+1
Level 36
Jun 19, 2022
What about private?
+1
Level 88
Mar 4, 2023
That word doesn't show up on the list.
+1
Level 63
Mar 18, 2023
I'd be interested to know how you got the statistics, Kalbahamut. I've worked a lot with the OEC and its PoS tagging in many areas leaves a lot to be desired.