Adjectives are used as qualifiers of nouns. They can be in masculin and feminin, in singular, dual and plural, just like nouns.

Combining nouns and adjectives

Adjectives always follow the nouns that they qualify, using the paradigm noun + adjective(s).

They also have the same gender and number as the nouns they qualify. Some examples will illustrate the relationship between nouns and adjectives:

Number - Gender Hieroglyphic Transcription Translation singular - masculin nTr aA great god singular - feminin nTr.t aA.t great goddess plural - masculin nTr.w aA.w great gods plural - feminin nTr.wt aA.wt great goddesses

When there are several adjectives to one noun, the adjectives are simply listed after their noun: nTr.t aA.t nfr.t, the great and beautiful goddess (lit.: goddess great beautiful).

Independent use of adjectives

Adjectives can also be used independently. In this case, often, a determinative may be added to the adjective to clarify its meaning. The adjective nfr, "beautiful, good" can, for instance, be used independently as follows:

nfr.t the beautiful crown (lit.: beautiful (crown))

nfr.t the beautiful cow (lit.: beautiful (cow))

In both cases, we could also have translated nfr.t as the beautiful one, but then the addition of the determinative would have been lost. It must be stressed, however, that even though we may render the added determinative as a noun, nfr.t is an adjective that is used without a noun. The added determinative is not a noun because it follows the adjective rather than preceeding it.

- Adjectives -