Collateral adjective

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Collateral adjective refers to an adjective with the same meaning as a noun but derived from a different root. For example, "lunar" serves as an adjective to describe attributes of the Moon; moon comes from the Old English mōna and lunar from the Latin luna.

In English, collateral adjectives often relate to root-words that were never fully adopted into the everyday language, but were still widely-enough known that the context would be understood. For example, "dog" is an English word, and the Latin "canine" is the Latin-based collateral adjective that refers to dogs.

Collateral adjectives can enhance writings on many subjects, but lose almost all effectiveness if they need to be explained to the target audience. "He walked with feline grace" needs no explanation to most English-speaking people; but "The pelagic sharks circled the raft" would send many of the same readers to the nearest television set.

[edit] External links

• A Nocturnal View of the Lunar Landscape, Verbatim: The Language Quarterly