Question

Form an adjective from the following noun;
SILK
A) Silkful
B) Silked
C) Silkly
D) Silken

Answer 1

Hint: Nouns are words that tell us what an object, place or person is. Depending on its usage, it is either common or proper. Common nouns are those nouns that are not specific or rare. For e.g. books, dogs, cars, tables, etc. Proper nouns are those nouns that are specific, rare, one of a kind, or names of people, places etc. For e.g. Tom Cruise, New Delhi, etc. Words that describe nouns are called adjectives. For e.g. red car, thick book, cute dog, etc.

Complete answer:
To form an adjective from a noun, we add various types of suffixes. These suffixes include –y, -less, -full, -ous, -en. For e.g. scare-scary, star-starry, hope-hopeful-hopeless, joy-joyful-joyous, danger-dangerous, forbid-forbidden, etc. We shall use this knowledge to convert the given noun into an adjective.

Now let us look into the given option:
Option A) Silkful – The suffix –ful cannot be used in this case to form the adjectives. –ful is used with abstract nouns like hope, thought, dread, fright. These nouns cannot be physically touched and express only a feeling. These words would generate adjectives like hopeful, thoughtful, dreadful, frightful etc. Silkful is an incorrect word and this is the wrong option.
Option B) Silked – The adjectives ending with –ed are generally formed from verbs and they express feelings. For e.g. annoyed, frightened, bored, tired. These words are generated from verbs, but the question wants us to convert the noun ‘silk’ into an adjective. Thus, this option is wrong.
Option C) Silkly – When words have –ly as their suffix, the words are generally adverbs. These words are used to describe verbs, adjectives and other adverbs but not nouns. For e.g. write properly, speak politely. These words are not adjectives. Thus, this option is incorrect.
Option D) Silken – The nouns which are concrete, and can be touched and seen can be suffixed with ‘-en’ to form an adjective. For e.g. Gold-Golden, Brass-Brazen, Clove-Cloven, Silk-silken. Therefore, -en is the correct suffix for the noun ‘silk’. Thus, this option is correct.

Thus, the correct answer is option (D) Silken.

Note: Sometimes, the nouns can be used as an adjective without changing the noun at all. In this case we use a noun just before a noun. For e.g. That is a race car. ‘Race’ is a noun in itself, but here it is describing that the ‘car’ is used for racing. For using a noun like this, we always use the singular form of the words .For e.g. “It is an automobile exhibition” and not “It is an automobiles exhibition.”