English Vocabulary in Use Upper-intermediate » Unit 41: Describing objects
Cotton is a natural material and nylon is artificial.
Red and yellow are vivid colours while grey is a sombre colour.
You can see through a transparent material but you can't see through an opaque material.
A machine that has no problems at all is perfect while one that doesn't work properly is faulty.
Something that is hard and doesn't move or bend easily is stiff while something that bends easily is flexible.
A material that can be easily spoilt by, for example, washing, can be called delicate while something that is hard to spoil can be called tough.
A material like glass that can be easily broken can be called fragile while something that does not break easily can be called strong or sturdy.
I prefer strong coffee to weak coffee - I can't stand coffee that has too much water or milk in it. I like to be able to really taste my coffee!
The painting is not a genuine Picasso - it's a fake.
| adjective | noun | example | meaning |
| decent | decency | I’d like to get a table that’s a decent size so we can have ten people to a meal. | good |
| entire | entirety | Between them they ate the entire cake! | whole |
| characteristic | character, characteristic | Big windows are characteristic of houses built in the early 1900s. | typical |
| precise | precision | We need to take precise measurements before we decide which fridge to get. | exact |
| severe | severity | It’s a severe building - all concrete and straight line. | very serious |
| solid | solidity | The table is made of solid oak. | hard all through |
| trivial | trivia, triviality | He doesn’t write serious novels, just trivial romances. | insignificant |
The only verbs that can be formed from adjectives in the above table are characterise, solidify and trivialise.
Did you see that great big cat run across the grass? [very big]
This photo isn't half as interesting as that one. [is much less]
Jessie's car is nowhere near as powerful as mine. [much less]
Tamara makes an unusually strong cup of coffee.
It's a reasonably good piece of sculpture. [fairly good]
It's a pretty thick book. [ fairly thick]
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