Sometimes it’s hard to explain exactly how you feel. This vocabulary list helps you narrow down exactly what word best expresses your current emotional state.
terrified (She looked at him with wide, terrified eyes.)
exhausted (You look absolutely exhausted.)
scared (People are scared to use the buses late at night.)
nervous (She was so nervous about her exams that she couldn’t sleep.)
embarrassed (She’s embarrassed about her height.)
What Are the Different Ways to Describe People?
Let’s say you want to describe a friend, a family member or a boss. You will probably use a few kinds of information.
Appearance is what someone looks like on the outside.
Mannerisms are the ways that someone acts or behaves.
Character traits are the little things that make someone who they are. In other words, they make up someone’s personality.
Emotions are what someone feels at a certain time.
In this post, we’ll go over useful vocabulary for describing all of these.
1. Describing someone’s appearance
To describe someone’s appearance, you will often use adjectives. An adjective is a kind of word that describes a noun (a person, place or thing).
Here are some words and phrases you can use to describe a person’s appearance.
Some of them are synonyms, or words that mean almost or exactly the same thing. Knowing more than one way of saying something is very helpful when describing people.
To describe someone’s height, you can say they are tall or short. Tall people are higher than short people. Someone who is thin and tall can be called lanky. To say someone is short and also small, you can say they are petite. If you’re talking about a child, they might be pint-sized.
Someone who weighs more than average can be curvy, well-built, full-bodied or heavy. (Curvy is usually only used to describe women.) You might also say someone has some meat on their bones. This is a casual way of saying they are overweight, and it might seem rude to someone sensitive. The opposite of overweight can be thin, slim or skinny.
Light, yellowish hair can be described as blonde. But you can also call a person who has that kind of hair a blonde. (This means blonde can be used as a noun or an adjective.) A person with dark hair can be called a brunette. Someone with red hair can be called a redhead.
