Character and Personality Adjectives. Lists of opposites. Reading Practice

Character traits (also called personality traits) are qualities or characteristics that describe what a person is like. 

(...) 

It's important to be able to describe your own personality or someone else's. 

Someone who...

1. talks a lot is talkative.
2. is always on time is punctual.
3. doesn’t like to do any work is lazy.
4. likes to give presents is generous.
5. thinks good things will happen is optimistic.
6. always tells the truth is honest.
7. does what he is told is obedient.
8. is always there for you is reliable.
9. makes people laugh is funny. 
10. is open and nice is friendly.

Synonyms and opposites are helpful in this sense. 

Here is a list of opposites (antonyms) arranged in alphabetical order.

Reading Practice

Sons and Lovers

When she was twenty-three years old, she met, at a Christmas party, a young man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was then twenty-seven years old. He was well set-up, erect, and very smart. He had wavy black hair that shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved. His cheeks were ruddy, and his red, moist mouth was noticeable because he laughed so often and so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich, ringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him, fascinated. He was so full of color and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic grotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody. Her own father had a rich fund of humor, but it was satiric. This man’s was different: soft, non-intellectual, warm, a kind of gamboling.

She herself was opposite. She had a curious, receptive mind, which found much pleasure and amusement in leading folk on to talk. She loved ideas, and she was considered very intellectual. What she liked most of all was an argument on religion or philosophy or politics with some educated man. This she did not often enjoy. So she always had people tell her about themselves, finding her pleasure so.

In her person she was rather small and delicate, with large brow, and dropping brunches of brown silk curls. Her blue eyes were very straight, honest and searching. She had the beautiful hands of the Coppards. Her dress was always subdued. She wore dark blue silk, with a peculiar silver chain of silver scallops. This, and a heavy brooch of twisted gold, was her only ornament. She was still perfectly intact, deeply religious, and full of beautiful candor.

 

Vocabulary Practice

 

Ex. 1. Choose the right word from the list below and put it into the necessary form:

 

a) energetic, vigorous, racy, active, lively, animated, vigorously

 

1. He was an able and _____ politician. 2. When she spoke to close people her language was _____. 3. A meek-looking little fox-terrier sprang over to poodle and _____ attacked a collie. (Jerome K. Jerome) 4. He is almost 90, but is still rather _____. 5. She’d always been a bright and _____ child. 6. Your dog needs at least 20 minutes of _____ exercise every day. 7. She sits at her dressing table and _____ brushes her hair. (D.Lodge) 8. An _____ discussion ensued from his remark.

 

b) ruddy, pink, red, rubicund, to flush, high(ly), flushed, rosy

 

1. His face was _____ and blotchy, with a network of little purple veins on the cheeks. 2. Tom was hot and _____. 3. Jimmie Langton, a fact, bald-headed, _____ man of forty five, who looked like one of Ruben’s prosperous burghers, has a passion for the theater. (Maugham) 4. His tone was so contemptuous that she _____ with anger. 5. Now his chestnut hair was very grey and he wore it much shorter, his face had broadened and was a good deal lined; his skin no longer had the soft bloom of a peach and his color was _____. (Maugham). 6. The third was perhaps seventeen, tall -and fair-haired, with _____ and white cheeks just touched by the sun. (Galsworthy) 7. He was a stout, _____-faced man. 8. Her face was big and broad and _____ colored. 9. She found his face strictly British with _____ cheeks and freckles. 10. His face, not a particularly handsome one, was _____ and weather-beaten. 11. She looked healthy with those _____ cheeks of hers.

 

c. heartily, cordially, sincerely, warmly

 

1. He laughed and _____ embraced his brother. 2. _____ I’ll see you again. 3. Mary greeted them _____. 4. You are _____ invited to our wedding on May, 30. 5. He smiled stiffly in answer to Julia’s warm ready smile and she felt the palm of his hand wet with sweat when she _____ grasped it. (Maugham) 6. She sat at the desk and with her bold, slowing hand wrote: Yours _____ Julia Lambert. (Maugham)