Some common Filipino adjectives end in -in or -an. Many -in forms describe a tendency or susceptibility—sakitin “sickly,” antukin “prone to sleepiness,” iyakin “prone to crying.” Several -an forms describe an affected or visibly covered state—pawisan “sweaty,” luhaan “tearful,” duguan “bloodied.”
These are useful families, not fully automatic recipes. The same written endings also occur in patient-voice and locative-voice verbs, and individual adjectives can show lexicalized sound or meaning changes. Learn the attested adjective with its root and typical contexts.
Established forms
| Base | Adjective | Typical property | Broad family |
|---|---|---|---|
| sakit “illness” | sakitin | frequently ill; sickly | -in tendency/susceptibility |
| antok “sleepiness” | antukin | easily sleepy | -in tendency/susceptibility |
| iyak “cry” | iyakin | cries easily | -in tendency |
| pawis “perspiration” | pawisan | covered in perspiration | -an affected state |
| luha “tear” | luhaan | tearful | -an affected state |
| dugo “blood” | duguan | bloodied; blood-covered | -an affected state |
The final surface form is not always just the unchanged base plus visible letters. In luha → luhaan, -an attaches after the final a, producing adjacent vowels. In dugo → duguan, the base-final o surfaces as u before the suffix. Learn the actual surface form rather than writing the mechanical dugoan. Ordinary writing does not add stress marks to distinguish every possible homograph; syntax and vocabulary knowledge do that work.
-in tendency adjectives
An -in tendency adjective usually describes a recurring disposition, not one event happening now.
Sakitin ang bunso namin noong maliit pa siya.
Our youngest was sickly when they were still small.
Antukin ako pagkatapos ng tanghalian kapag kulang ang tulog ko.
I get sleepy easily after lunch when I have not slept enough.
Iyakin ang bata kapag pagod, pero mabilis din siyang tumahan.
The child cries easily when tired, but also calms down quickly.
Iyakin can sound judgmental when applied to an adult (informal), much like English crybaby. The descriptive tendency reading is more neutral with a young child.
Compare disposition with a temporary condition:
Sakitin si Noel, pero wala siyang sakit ngayon.
Noel is sickly, but he is not ill now.
Sakitin describes a recurring susceptibility. May sakit describes being ill in the relevant present situation. The distinction cannot be recovered by translating both loosely as “sick.”
-an affected-state adjectives
Many -an adjectives describe the visible result of contact with a substance or an emotional/physical state.
Pawisan ang mga manlalaro pagkatapos ng ensayo.
The players are sweaty after practice.
Luhaan si Mara nang lumabas siya sa silid.
Mara was tearful when she came out of the room.
Duguan ang manggas niya, kaya dinala siya agad sa klinika.
Their sleeve was bloodied, so they were taken to the clinic immediately.
These adjectives predicate directly. English inserts is/was; Filipino does not. Time comes from expressions such as pagkatapos ng ensayo and from the surrounding completed events, not from an adjectival tense ending.
Predicative and attributive uses
When the adjective modifies a noun, apply the ordinary linker. Forms ending in n take suffix -g.
Pawisan ang manlalarong lumapit sa amin.
The player who approached us was sweaty.
Binigyan ko ng tubig ang pawisang manlalaro.
I gave water to the sweaty player.
This controlled comparison changes predicative pawisan to attributive pawisang manlalaro. Likewise, sakiting bata means “a sickly child,” with sakitin + -g.
Madalas lumiban ang sakiting bata kapag tag-ulan.
The sickly child is often absent during the rainy season.
Do not write separate na after final n: sakitin na bata can instead be read as “a child who is sickly now/already,” where na is a particle rather than the attributive linker intended here.
Degree, comparison, and reduplication
Because these are property words, many accept normal degree expressions when the meaning allows it.
Mas antukin ako kapag maulan ang panahon.
I am more prone to sleepiness when the weather is rainy.
Pawisang-pawisan siya pagdating sa tuktok.
They were extremely sweaty upon reaching the summit.
Intensive pawisang-pawisan repeats the adjective with linker -g and a hyphen. Not every -in/-an adjective sounds equally natural with every degree pattern; frequency and meaning are lexical. For instance, intensifying duguan may be inappropriate or melodramatic outside a genuinely severe scene.
Adjective or verb? Context decides
Suffixes resembling -in and -an are also central to Filipino verb morphology. Basahin ang liham “Read the letter” and Hugasan ang kotse “Wash the car” are patient/locative-voice verb forms, not adjectives. They license actors and patients and belong to aspect/voice paradigms.
By contrast, Antukin siya simply predicates a tendency. It has no non-pivot actor and is not a command to act on someone. Learners must not identify word class from the last two letters alone.
This is one instance of the wider distinction between productive and lexicalized affixes: a familiar written ending does not guarantee the same grammatical category or meaning.
—Antukin ka ba sa mahabang biyahe? —Oo, kaya nagdadala ako ng kape.
—Do you get sleepy easily on long trips? —Yes, so I bring coffee.
Question ba follows predicate antukin and clitic ka follows the predicate in its regular position.
Common Mistakes
Using a temporary condition for a recurring tendency
❌ May sakit si Ana mula pagkabata.
Wrong for 'Ana has always been sickly' — may sakit normally presents an illness, not a stable susceptibility.
✅ Sakitin si Ana mula pagkabata.
Ana has been sickly since childhood.
Omitting the linker after an n-final adjective
❌ Binigyan ng tuwalya ang pawisan manlalaro.
Incorrect — pawisan takes linker -g before manlalaro.
✅ Binigyan ng tuwalya ang pawisang manlalaro.
The sweaty player was given a towel.
Using noun-first English order without a predicate structure
❌ Si Leo antukin kapag hapon.
Incorrect neutral clause structure — the property predicate should come first.
✅ Antukin si Leo kapag hapon.
Leo gets sleepy easily in the afternoon.
Choosing -an for the tendency adjective iyakin
❌ Iyakan ang bunso kapag inaantok.
Incorrect for 'prone to crying' — iyakan has other possible constructional meanings, not this adjective.
✅ Iyakin ang bunso kapag inaantok.
The youngest child cries easily when sleepy.
Key Takeaways
- Common -in adjectives often express tendency or susceptibility; common -an adjectives often express an affected state.
- These families are lexicalized: learn sakitin, antukin, iyakin, pawisan, luhaan, duguan as whole words.
- They predicate directly and take ordinary linkers in attributive use.
- Similar-looking -in/-an verb forms belong to voice and aspect paradigms and must not be analyzed as adjectives automatically.
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