When describing someone's physical appearance or personality in Croatian, you will often use the descriptive genitive (genitiv svojstva). Instead of a preposition like "with," you place the trait directly after the person, putting both its adjective and noun into the genitive case.
This mirrors English phrases using "of," such as "a man of medium height."
Describing Physical Traits
For masculine traits like rast (stature), ten (complexion), and stas (figure), the adjective takes -og or -eg and the noun takes -a (srednji rast → srednjeg rasta).
| Do you see that man of medium height? | Vidite li onog čovjeka srednjeg rasta? |
| The girl of dark complexion is very beautiful. | Djevojka tamnog tena je vrlo lijepa. |
| The woman of slim figure entered the room. | Žena vitkog stasa ušla je u sobu. |
For feminine nouns ending in -a, like građa (build), both the adjective and noun take the -e ending (krupna građa → krupne građe).
| They are looking for a young man of large build. | Traže mladića krupne građe. |
| The player of athletic build runs fast. | Igrač atletske građe trči brzo. |
Describing Personality and Temperament
The descriptive genitive is also used for inner character. Words like narav (nature) and ćud (temper) are feminine nouns that end in a consonant. In the genitive, these nouns take an -i ending, while their describing adjectives take the standard feminine -e.
- dobra narav (good nature) → dobre naravi
- loša ćud (bad temper) → loše ćudi
| My brother is a person of good nature. | Moj brat je osoba dobre naravi. |
| I am afraid of that man of bad temper. | Bojim se onog čovjeka loše ćudi. |
| Do you remember the professor of strict temper? | Sjećaš li se profesora stroge ćudi? |