Osnovni pridevi
Overview
Serbian adjectives describe a noun's quality and agree with it in gender and number - like један in the lesson on numbers, the ending changes to match whatever noun it stands next to.
This lesson covers gender and number endings, the common disappearing а pattern and adjective agreement in a basic case contrast. Definite and indefinite forms such as нов and нови are covered later.
Gender and number endings
Adjectives agree with nouns: masculine нов, feminine нова, neuter ново; plural forms are нови, нове, нова. They usually come before the noun: добра сестра.
The fleeting a pattern
In добар, the masculine has a fleeting а: добар → добра, добро, добри. This is common with -ан adjectives too (гладан → гладна); forms in -ак and -ар vary, so learn examples such as јак → јака and стар → стара.
Agreement with case
Adjectives agree in case too: добра сестра becomes добру сестру in the accusative. With inanimate masculine and neuter nouns, nominative and accusative match, so the adjective stays unchanged: нов сто.
Tables
| Gender | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | nov | novi |
| feminine | nova | nove |
| neuter | novo | nova |
Examples
Compared with…
English adjectives never change form at all - good stays good whether the noun is a good book or good books - and word order is the same in both languages, the adjective right before its noun. What's new is the ending: every Serbian adjective must be learned together with its three gender forms, not as one fixed word.
Common mistakes
Tips & exceptions
- An adjective almost always stands directly before its noun and copies that noun's gender, number and case ending.
- Learn irregular adjectives as a three-form chunk from the start - добар/добра/добро - the same way you already memorize a noun's different case forms.
- If the noun's ending changed (e.g. feminine -а → -у in the accusative), check that its adjective's ending changed the same way.
- The fleeting а affects only the masculine singular form; feminine, neuter and every plural form use the shorter stem without it.
- Feminine singular -а and neuter plural -а look identical (e.g. нова) - exactly the same overlap the lesson on noun gender already flagged for nouns like село → села; context tells them apart.
- A handful of common adjectives, like мали (small), are normally only used in this longer form in everyday speech - the parallel short form barely occurs.