Negative Personality Adjectives: How to Describe Your Favorite Antagonists

Negative Personality Adjectives: How to Describe Your Favorite Antagonists Image

Sometimes it’s fun being bad. Other times, however, you might be looking for a strew of colorful adjectives that convey just how bad someone else is.

Whether you’re trying to describe the antagonists of your own life or your manuscript, accurately describing characters (both naughty and nice) requires creative adjectives that convey that personality.

Using positive and negative adjectives can help you to effectively express your thoughts and help your audience to better understand your subject.

Describing Personality with Adjectives

Every adjective can evoke a number of feelings, both good and bad. This makes it really important to choose your words carefully and consider their connotation, since even slightly similar words can carry quite different meanings.

Adjectives that Describe Negative Personality

There are lots of adjectives you can use to describe a negative personality. Knowing a few of them can be handy not only in writing but also in conversations, where it is important to give an accurate account of a person.

Here are a few adjectives you can use that will also help to establish tone in your writing.

aimless confrontational grumpy obnoxious
aloof cowardly harsh offensive
argumentative cruel impatient overcritical
belligerent cynical impulsive overcritical
big-headed deceitful inconsiderate pitiful
blunt discourteous jealous pompous
boastful dishonest killjoy rude
boring disloyal know-it-all selfish
callous fickle moody spoilsport
careless fussy narrow-minded untrustworthy
clingy greedy nervous uptight

Download a PDF of our list of negative personality adjectives for quick reference.

More Negative Personality Adjectives

  • aggressive
  • annoying
  • arrogant
  • bossy
  • conceited
  • cruel
  • frivolous
  • lazy
  • offensive
  • panicky
  • tactless
  • thoughtless

Sentence Examples

  • The math teacher is quite grumpy as she hands back the low-scoring exams.
  • I don’t know how they’ll manage with that budget for the wedding; you know how frivolous she is with her spending.
  • Her successor was regarded as a bitter and angry woman.
  • The greedy politician was somehow elected to serve another term.
  • She’s so conceited that she never even thinks about how others feel.

Examples from Literature

Veronica Roth’s Divergent

In Divergent, Tris was bullied and almost thrown off a ledge to her death after being seen as a threat. One of the people who tried to kill her actually turned out to be one of her friends. Although she survived, she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him and even threatened to kill him. The next day, his body was found from under the Chasm.

"This is ridiculous," she says, flushing. 
"He throws himself off a ledge and Eric's calling it brave?
Eric, who tried to have you throw knives at Al's head?"
Her face contorts.
"He wasn't brave! He was depressed and a coward,
and he almost killed me! Is that the kind of thing we respect here?"

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

In this excerpt from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry was unfortunate enough to come across Argus Filch and his cat Mrs. Norris.

"Right," said Harry, backing away from the accusing stare of
Mrs. Norris, but not quickly enough.
Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him
with his foul cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to Harry's right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker.
There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head,
and his nose was unusually purple.

Negative Personality Adjectives

Making use of the appropriate adjectives will impact not only the person you’re speaking about, but also those you’re speaking to.

Using the right words to describe a character, or even a real person, will help your readers or the people around you better relate to what you’re saying.

Do you know any literary works out there that efficiently described their characters using adjectives? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

 

If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think Pieces: What They Are and How to Write One

Image
A think piece, also known as a thought piece, is an article or piece of writing intended to stir up the reader’s thoughts. It is usually speculative, with a lot of expository material, context, and the author’s analysis and opinion of existing ideas. Sometimes, think pieces can lean toward the controversial, especially when they seek to challenge majority opinions. Particularly provocative pieces are often the ones that get shared all over social media or the internet. Editors of magazines, blogs, and websites often pay for think pieces, but they are not that easy to write. This is perhaps why many writers aspire to be published in mainstream publications like The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Economist, The Atlantic, and The Saturday Evening Post , but their submissions barely get a sideways glance.  The good news is that getting a think piece published does not depend on your name or reputation; instead, quality is king. The key is being able to think deeply about a t...
Read more

The Best Mobile Apps for Writers

Image
If you’re a writer looking for a better way to write on your smartphone or mobile device, this post will help. Using a text app or word processor just won’t cut it if you’re doing heavy duty writing on a mobile device. These tools can help whether you have an Android or Apple device. 1. IWriter iWriter is a writing tool that functions excellently on Android and iOS. It is the best app for writing articles, books, or taking detailed notes. iWriter is a simple and elegant text editor. You can download it via iTunes or Google Play . You can check out iWriter subscription pricing here. 2. JotterPad Jotterpad makes it possible to convert files from PDF to WORD and some other popular formats. The app supports Markdown. It includes text styling, a thesaurus, a built-in dictionary that’ll even help you rhyme. It has essential features such as snapshots, typewriter scrolling, undo/redo, night vision, universal dark theme, and phrase finder. JotterPad supports full Cloud integr...
Read more

Author Business Cards: Why You Need Them and How to Make Them

Image
The first rule for being a successful author is to write. The second rule for being a successful author is to write more. The third rule for being a successful author is to always be networking. You never know where your next fan will come from. It might be someone who finds your book on Goodreads, but it might also be the person in front of you at the grocery store or the guy you bump into when you’re out for pizza. You might get chatting with someone at the bowling alley. You might end up discussing your book at the DMV. Your next reader could be anyone, anywhere. So you need to be prepared! That’s why business cards still matter in the digital era. Although we all tote tiny computers in our pockets all day, it’s still a pain in the butt to exchange contact information on a phone—not everyone uses the same system, vCards work with contact and email programs but aren’t universal, and NFC transfers are kind of clunky. Besides, after you dump your information into someone else’...
Read more