predicative adjective

An adjective that usually comes after a linking verb and not before a noun. Contrast with attributive adjective.

See also:

• Commonly Confused Words: Good and Well
• Complement
• Exercise in Identifying Adjectives
• Postmodifier
• Predicate Nominative

Examples and Observations:

• "The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic. The Earth was absolutely round. I believe that I never knew what the word 'round' meant until I saw the earth from space."
  (Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, quoted by Daniel B. Botkin in No Man's Garden. Island Press, 2001)



• "The scene is instant, whole and wonderful. In its beauty and design that vision of the soaring stands, the pattern of forty thousand empetalled faces, the velvet and unalterable geometry of the playing field, and the small lean figures of the players, set there, lonely, tense, and waiting in their places, bright, desperate solitary atoms encircled by that huge wall of nameless faces, is incredible."
  (Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River, 1935)



• "Predicative adjectives most often occur as complement to the verb be, but be allows such a wide range of complements that its value as a diagnostic is quite limited. Much more useful from this point of view are the verbs become and make, and to a lesser extent seem, appear, feel, look, sound, which take a more restricted range of complements."
  (Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002)



• "There are two main kinds of adjectives: attributive ones normally come right before the noun they qualify, while predicative adjectives come after to be or similar verbs such as become and seem. Most adjectives can serve either purpose: we can speak of a 'happy family' and say 'the family appeared happy.' But some work only one way. Take the sentence 'Clergymen are answerable to a higher authority.' Answerable is exclusively a predicative; you could not refer to an 'answerable clergyman.' And higher is strictly attributive; you wouldn't normally say, 'The authority is higher.'
  
  "Predicative adjectives appear before the noun when used appositively: 'Tall, dark, and homely, he is a natural choice to play the part of Abraham Lincoln.'"
  (Ben Yagoda, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It. Broadway Books, 2007)



• "The most guileful amongst the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive. They are the ones who will seek to gut you on every occasion.”
  (Mayor Edward Koch)



• "Anyone can become angry--that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way--that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy."
  (Aristotle)