Basic Spanish Adjectives You Need to Know (100+ Words Explained)

Are you looking for a list of Spanish adjectives? Well, you’ve come to the right place, because in this post we present more than 100 of the most common Spanish adjectives!

Spanish adjectives can feel tricky at first, not because the words themselves are hard, but because they change depending on who or what you’re describing. A single adjective can look different based on gender, number, and even where it appears in the sentence, which is often where learners get stuck.

That’s why this guide focuses on helping you recognize patterns instead of memorizing isolated words. As you go through the list, you’ll see how common Spanish adjectives adapt in real usage, how their endings shift, and how meaning stays consistent even when the form changes. By seeing each adjective in all its natural variations, you’ll build a stronger instinct for using descriptive words in Spanish correctly without overthinking every sentence.

How Spanish Adjectives Work: Grammar Rules 

An adjective is a word that describes, identifies, modifies, or quantifies a noun. The two main rules we need to know about Spanish adjectives pertain to gender and number agreement, and sentence structure.

There are several categories of adjectives, but the ones we think of most are the describing words in Spanish. All the vocabulary words we introduce in this post fall into this category of Spanish descriptive adjectives.

We have a detailed post explaining how to use adjectives in Spanish, so head there for a full lesson on descriptive adjectives and more. We’ll just cover the essential grammar rules here before we get into our lists of Spanish adjectives.

Gender and number agreement in Spanish Adjectives

Since all Spanish nouns are either masculine or feminine, all Spanish adjectives have masculine and feminine forms to match. Using the right form of a given adjective for a given noun is called gender agreement, and it’s a fundamental rule for Spanish adjectives. Most adjectives end -o in masculine and end in -a in feminine, with corresponding plural endings -os and -as. These endings match the plural indefinite articles: unos and unas.

Some Spanish adjectives are invariable, which means they have only one form that we use in both masculine and feminine. Invariable adjectives in Spanish end in letters other than -o.

When nouns are plural, the Spanish adjectives that modify them need to take a plural form too. For most adjectives this just involves adding an -s, though some of the invariable adjectives follow other Spanish pluralization rules.

The masculine singular form of a Spanish adjective is considered the default, which is why dictionaries and vocabulary lists usually show only this version. In practice, however, most adjectives appear in four forms: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. 

For example, here are the four forms of the adjective bueno, meaning good:

• bueno (masculine singular)
• buena (feminine singular)
• buenos (masculine plural)
• buenas (feminine plural)

For invariable adjectives, there are just two forms. Let’s see this in action with the adjective caliente, meaning hot:

• caliente (masculine singular, feminine singular)
• calientes (masculine plural, feminine plural)

In our lists of Spanish adjectives below, we include all four forms for every adjective. The invariable adjectives are in their own list with their two forms.

Word Order: Where Spanish Adjectives Go in a Sentence

One of the main differences to English is that in Spanish, the adjective usually goes after the noun. This may take a bit of getting used to if you’re new to the language, but you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

We place the adjective after the noun whether it’s directly modifying it, or if the adjective comes after a conjugated verb.

• Preparé dos cafés calientes. – I prepared two hot coffees.
• Los cafés están calientes. – The coffees are hot.

There are some exceptions to this rule, but you can’t really go wrong if you just stick with the norm and always place the Spanish adjective after the noun. We cover the exceptions in our companion post on grammar rules for adjectives in Spanish.

Adjectives in Spanish: examples

Before we get into our big list of Spanish adjectives, let’s just see some examples where we apply the rules we’ve just learned. Watch as BaseLang teacher Melissa uses each one, or read on to see them all in action.

We’ll start off with a set of regular adjectives in Spanish that change form to match the gender and number of the noun. From the default (masculine singular) form we provide before each example, see how these variable adjectives then end in -o, -a, -os, or -as once they’re placed after their nouns.

• bueno: Un hotel bueno. (masculine singular) – A good hotel.
• malo: Un televisor malo. (masculine singular) – A bad television.

• aburrido: Una película aburrida. (feminine singular) – A boring film.
• nuevo: Una calle nueva. (feminine singular) – A new street.

• pequeño: Los gatos pequeños. (masculine plural) – The small cats.
• viejo: Unos taxis viejos. (masculine plural) – Some old taxis.

• delicioso: Unas manzanas deliciosas. (feminine plural) – Some delicious apples.
• divertido: Las clases divertidas. (feminine plural) – The fun classes.

Now we’ll show some invariable adjectives. Note that the masculine and feminine forms are identical, so they just change form between singular and plural.

• fácil: Un trabajo fácil. (masculine singular) – An easy job.
• feliz: Una familia feliz. (feminine singular) – A happy family.

• difícil: Unos días difíciles. (masculine plural) – Some difficult days.
• triste: Las niñas tristes. (feminine plural) – The sad girls.

Ok, now that we’re clear on the fundamental rules for using Spanish descriptive adjectives, let’s get into our vocab lists!

Spanish adjectives list

Below you’ll find some of the most common Spanish adjectives used to describe people, places, and things. These are all descriptive words in Spanish that come up constantly in everyday conversation. 

We don’t include colors, since we cover them in a dedicated post on colors in Spanish. We also recommend our related posts on making physical descriptions, body parts, describing how you feel, and giving compliments.

Each adjective here  is shown in all four forms so you can see how it changes with gender and number, along with a clear English meaning. Further down, you’ll find a separate list of invariable adjectives that don’t change at all.

This next list includes invariable Spanish adjectives, which don’t change between masculine and feminine forms. Because of that, they only need two columns. Just note that some plural forms aren’t made by simply adding -s.

Conclusion: How to use descriptive words in Spanish

By now, you’ve seen just how much ground Spanish adjectives can cover. We explored over 100 of the most common descriptive words you’ll hear and use every day, along with the patterns that make them work in real Spanish.

The big takeaways are simple once you see them in action. Most Spanish adjectives change to match the noun they describe, adjusting for gender and number. That’s why many of them show up in four different forms, while a smaller group stays gender-neutral and only shifts between singular and plural. On top of that, Spanish usually flips the order English learners expect, placing adjectives after the noun instead of before it.

Once those two ideas click, everything else starts to fall into place. With the grammar out of the way, you saw these rules applied across a wide range of adjectives (first the ones with four forms, then the invariable ones), so you can recognize them, use them, and start describing people, places, and things with more confidence and precision.

Between the big Spanish adjectives list from this post, and our other post with the full grammar lesson, you now have a great introduction to the most common Spanish adjectives!