When you ask "what are the adjectives in Turkish?", the honest answer is: far more words than any dictionary list could hold. Beyond a modest core of underived adjectives (büyük "big," güzel "beautiful," yeni "new"), Turkish manufactures adjectives on demand from nouns and verbs using a small kit of suffixes — and, on top of that, lets any noun and any participle stand in the adjective slot. The upshot is a genuinely different way of thinking about word classes: in Turkish, "adjective" is best understood not as a closed list of words you memorise, but as a position before the noun that a -lI word, a -sIz word, a participle, or even a bare noun can all step into. This page pulls together the main sources so you can see the whole forest, with links to the trees.
-lI and -sIz: the antonym factory
The two highest-yield adjective-makers are -lI "with / having / -ful / -y" and its mirror -sIz "without / -less." Attach either to a noun and you get an adjective; attach both and you get a matched antonym pair for the price of one base.
Bu kadar şanslı olduğuna inanamıyorum, üst üste kazandın.
I can't believe you're this lucky — you won again and again.
Anlamsız bir tartışmaydı, kimse fikrini değiştirmedi.
It was a pointless argument — nobody changed their mind.
So şans "luck" → şanslı "lucky" / şanssız "unlucky"; anlam "meaning" → anlamlı "meaningful" / anlamsız "meaningless"; su "water" → sulu "watery, juicy" / susuz "waterless." Both harmonise four ways. This pair alone probably generates more Turkish adjectives than every other source combined — see the full treatment at having and lacking: -lI and -sIz.
Bare nouns as adjectives
You do not always need a suffix at all. A bare noun, placed in front of another noun, modifies it like an adjective — most visibly with material words: tahta masa "wooden table," altın yüzük "gold ring," plastik şişe "plastic bottle." Here tahta "wood" is morphologically a noun, but it occupies the adjective slot and does an adjective's job.
Antika dükkânından eski bir tahta sandık aldık.
We bought an old wooden chest from the antique shop.
Çocuğa plastik bir kova ve kürek yeter.
A plastic bucket and spade is enough for the child.
This is the clearest evidence that the adjective slot is a syntactic position, not a word class: a plain noun fills it without changing form. (When the modifier needs the -(s)I ending, it becomes an indefinite izafet instead — çocuk bahçesi "children's garden / playground" — but the pure material modifiers stay bare.)
-lIk in compound and time adjectives
The suffix -lIk mostly builds nouns, but in a recurring set it builds adjectives of time-span or measure: gün "day" → günlük "daily," hafta "week" → haftalık "weekly," yıl "year" → yıllık "annual," saat "hour" → saatlik "hour-long." These sit before a noun perfectly happily.
Günlük gazeteyi artık telefonumdan okuyorum.
I now read the daily paper on my phone.
Üç saatlik bir toplantıdan yeni çıktım.
I've just come out of a three-hour meeting.
The same -lIk also forms "fit for / pertaining to" adjectives: kış "winter" → kışlık "for winter (clothes/supplies)," yaz → yazlık "for summer." So kışlık paltolar "winter coats." This adjectival use lives alongside the abstract-noun use (güzellik "beauty") and the container use (tuzluk "salt-shaker") — one suffix, several outputs, as covered at abstract nouns with -lIk.
Dolabın üst rafına yazlık kıyafetleri kaldırdım.
I stored the summer clothes on the top shelf of the wardrobe.
-CA: a smaller adjectival role
The suffix -CA is mainly an adverb-maker (hızlı "fast" → hızlıca "fairly fast, quickly") and a "-ish / sort of" softener, but it also yields some adjectival forms, especially "in the manner/quantity of": yavaş "slow" → yavaşça "gently, slowly," and moderating colours and qualities — güzelce "nicely, properly." On nouns it can mean "-ish in amount": bir hayli alternates with epeyce "quite a lot." Its register is everyday and it harmonises two ways (-ca / -ce), hardening to -ça / -çe after a voiceless consonant.
Meseleyi uzunca anlattı ama yine de anlamadım.
He explained the matter at some length, but I still didn't get it.
Bayağıca bir para harcadık o tatilde.
We spent quite a fair bit of money on that holiday.
Here uzun "long" → uzunca "fairly long, at some length" works as a softened, "-ish" version of the base adjective. Treat -CA as a gradient/approximating modifier rather than a core adjective-maker; its main home is the adverbial -CA.
The participles: verbs becoming adjectives
This is where Turkish goes far beyond English. A verb can be turned into an adjective by a participle suffix, and the resulting form modifies a noun exactly like güzel does. There are four core relative participles, each marking a different relationship to the noun:
| Participle | Sense | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| -An | "the one that V-s" (subject) | ağlayan çocuk | the crying child |
| -DIK (+poss.) | "that (someone) V-ed" (object) | okuduğum kitap | the book (that) I read |
| -(y)AcAK | "that will be V-ed / to be V-ed" | yapılacak iş | the work to be done |
| -mIş | "V-ed, having been V-ed" | kırılmış cam | broken glass |
Köşede ağlayan çocuğu fark ettin mi?
Did you notice the child crying in the corner?
Dün okuduğum kitap beni çok etkiledi.
The book I read yesterday affected me deeply.
Yapılacak çok iş var, hemen başlayalım.
There's a lot of work to be done — let's start right away.
Yerde kırılmış cam parçaları vardı.
There were pieces of broken glass on the floor.
English needs a relative clause ("the child who is crying," "the book that I read") to do what these single participles do. In Turkish the whole clause collapses into one adjective-like form sitting in front of the noun. That is the deepest reason "adjective" is a slot: a participle is a verb form, yet it lives in the adjective position and behaves like one. The full mechanics are at participial adjectives.
-CI: occasionally adjectival
The agent suffix -CI usually makes person-nouns (gazeteci "journalist"), but on trait bases it produces words that work as adjectives too: inat "obstinacy" → inatçı "stubborn," kavga "fight" → kavgacı "quarrelsome," barış "peace" → barışçı "peace-loving, pacifist." These double as noun ("a stubborn person") and adjective ("stubborn").
O inatçı çocukla baş etmek hiç kolay değil.
It's not at all easy to deal with that stubborn child.
Barışçı bir çözüm bulmaya çalışıyorlar.
They're trying to find a peaceful solution.
Why this matters: an open, not a closed, class
In English, "adjectives" feels like a finite list with fuzzy edges; you can almost imagine a dictionary marking each word adj. In Turkish that picture fails. Because -lI, -sIz, -lIk, -CA, -CI, the participles, and bare nouns can all occupy the pre-nominal modifier slot, the set of possible "adjectives" is effectively open: you generate a new one whenever you derive from a fresh noun or verb. So when you meet an unfamiliar word in front of a noun, do not panic that it is not in your adjective list — parse its suffix, and you will usually recognise it as one of these derivations doing an adjective's job.
Common mistakes
❌ Expecting a fixed, closed list of adjectives to memorise.
Misleading — Turkish derives adjectives productively; learn the suffixes, not a finite list.
✅ Learn -lI/-sIz, -lIk, the participles, and the bare-noun slot — then read off the adjective.
The generative view.
❌ ağlamak çocuk (using a bare infinitive as a modifier)
Incorrect — to modify a noun with a verb, use a participle: ağlayan çocuk.
✅ ağlayan çocuk
the crying child.
❌ okuduğum kitabı çok etkiledi (mismatched possessive)
The -DIK participle must carry the possessive agreeing with the subject: okuduğum (that I read), not a bare okuduk.
✅ okuduğum kitap beni etkiledi
the book I read affected me.
❌ tahtadan masa (for a plain 'wooden table')
Over-marked — the bare noun modifier is enough: tahta masa. (The ablative stresses 'made out of wood.')
✅ tahta masa
a wooden table.
❌ şanssızlı
Incorrect — 'without' is the standalone suffix -sIz, not a negated -lI: şanssız.
✅ şanssız
unlucky.
Key takeaways
- Turkish builds adjectives from a small kit: -lI / -sIz (the antonym factory), -lIk (time/measure & "fit for" adjectives), -CA (gradient/"-ish"), -CI (trait adjectives), plus bare nouns and the four participles.
- The participles (-An, -DIK, -(y)AcAK, -mIş) turn whole verb meanings into single pre-nominal modifiers, doing the work of English relative clauses.
- "Adjective" in Turkish is best treated as a syntactic slot — the position before the noun — that many word types can fill, not a closed class to memorise.
- When you meet an unknown pre-nominal word, parse the suffix: it is almost always one of these derivations acting as an adjective.
- Cross-references: -lI / -sIz, -lIk, participial adjectives, and the adjective overview.
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- Having and Lacking: -lI and -sIzA2 — The antonym pair -lI ('with / having / -y / -ful') and -sIz ('without / -less') turns almost any noun into a matched pair of adjectives — şekerli/şekersiz, anlamlı/anlamsız — so one suffix pair generates a whole field of describing words.
- Adjectives from Verbs (Participles as Modifiers)B2 — Turkish has no relative pronoun; instead a participle turns a whole verb phrase into a pre-nominal adjective, so 'the man who came' is literally 'the came-man' — gelen adam.
- Forming Abstract Nouns with -lIkB1 — One workhorse suffix builds abstract nouns ('-ness', '-hood', '-ship') and concrete 'thing-for' nouns alike — güzellik, çocukluk, gözlük, tuzluk.
- Adjectives: No AgreementA1 — Turkish attributive adjectives go before the noun and never agree — in number, gender, or case. All the inflection lives on the noun, so güzel is identical in güzel ev, güzel evler, and güzel evde.