adjective

Etymology

From Middle English adjectif, adjective, from Old French adjectif, from Latin adiectivus, from adiciō + -īvus, from ad- (“to, towards, at”) + iaciō (“throw”). The Latin word adiectivus in turn was a calque of Ancient Greek ἐπιθετικόν (epithetikón, “added”), a derivative of the compound verb ἐπιτίθημι (epitíthēmi), from which also comes epithet.

noun

1. (grammar) A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
   The words “big” and “heavy” are English adjectives.
   "They'll have to invent new adjectives when I come back. You wait!" 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 8
2. (obsolete) A dependent; an accessory.
   it must be an adjective of dain

adj

1. (grammar) Adjectival; pertaining to or functioning as an adjective.
2. (law) Applying to methods of enforcement and rules of procedure.
3. (chemistry, of a dye) Needing the use of a mordant to be made fast to that which is being dyed.
4. (obsolete, reflected in the chemical sense, but extinct as a general sense) Incapable of independent function.
   In fact, God is of not so much importance in Himself, but as the end towards which man tends. That irreverent person who said that Browning uses “God” as a pigment made an accurate criticism of his theology. In Browning, God is adjective to man. 1899, John Jay Chapman, Emerson and Other Essays, AMS Press (1969) (as reproduced in Project Gutenberg)

verb

1. (transitive) To make an adjective of; to form or convert into an adjective.
   Language has as much occasion to adjective the distinct signification of the verb, and to adjective also the mood, as it has to adjective time. It has […] adjectived all three. 1805, John Horne Tooke, Epea Pteroenta: or The Diversions of Purley Part 2
   In English, instead of adjectiving our own substantives, we have borrowed, in immense numbers, adjectived signs from other languages[…] 1832, William Hunter, An Anglo-Saxon grammar, and derivatives, page 46
2. (transitive, chiefly as a participle) To characterize with an adjective; to describe by using an adjective.