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common errors > delicious  adjective


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Incorrect or non-standard usage, overuse etc

(1) The seafood was very delicious.
(2) We are going to have a delicious dinner to celebrate Tim's birthday.



The problem

 


(1) Delicious is a non-gradable adjective. i.e. it means very tasty.
(Other examples of non-gradable adjectives are, enormous - very big; tiny - very small; exhausted - very tired; fantastic - very good)

You cannot use 'very' with non-gradable adjectives as they already contain the idea of 'very'. However, you can use some other words such as 'absolutely'
(For more details, there is a good set of notes at EnglishClub.com - see below.)

(2) The word 'delicious' is often misused to describe an eating experience that is generally good - i.e. there were lots of dishes, the restaurant was a rather upmarket one etc. However, in English, the word delicious refers only to the taste of food.



Standard English

The seafood was absolutely delicious.
We're going somewhere nice for a meal to celebrate Tim's birthday.
We're going for a slap up meal. (Informal - spoken English - British)



See also


The following online resources may be useful for this topic

 


quiz gradable and absolute adjectives gap fill quiz Gap quiz using absolute adjectives in Reward Int Resource Pack, progress check 6 - 10 dominoes
    
eltbase English language quizzes
matching Gradable and absolute adjectives matching Uses adjective examples found in Reward Int Resource Pack, 6 - 10 progress check: dominoes
includes tasks     student-specifc material
eltbase English language quizzes
notes Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives Clear and fairly comprehensive set of notes
    
EnglishClub.com


Dictionaries
Online dictionary links are available for the following words:


delicious adjective MacMillanCambridgeDictionary.comWiktionary
slap-up adjective MacMillanCambridge Wiktionary




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