Describing people: character. A Intellectual ability. B Attitudes towards life. C Attitude towards other people. D One person's meat is another person's poison

Describing people: character

A Intellectual ability

Ability: intelligent bright clever sharp shrewd able gifted talented

brainy (colloquial)

Lacking ability: stupid foolish half-witted simple silly brainless daft dumb

dim (the last four are predominantly colloquial words)

Clever, in a negative way, using brains to trick or deceive: cunning crafty sly

B Attitudes towards life

Amal is pessimistic while Nita is optimistic - he always expects the worst to happen while she looks on the bright side.

It is strange that one of the twins is so extroverted while the other is so introverted – Ben loves being the focus of attention while Bill would far rather be alone with his thoughts.

I feel very tense (or wound-up / stressed-out **) after a very busy day at work but, after a hot bath and a nice cup of tea, I'll soon feel relaxed.

Jane is very sensible - she'd never do anything stupid. In other words, she's very practical and down-to-earth.

Rupert is very sensitive - he gets very upset (or worked-up, more colloquial), if he feels people are criticizing him.

C Attitude towards other people

Enjoying others' company: sociable gregarious *

Disagreeing with others: quarrelsome argumentative

Taking pleasure in others' pain: cruel sadistic

Relaxed in attitude to self and others: easy-going even-tempered laid-back **

Not polite to others: impolite rude ill-mannered discourteous *

Telling the truth to others: honest trustworthy reliable sincere

Unhappy if others have what one does not have oneself: jealous envious

D One person's meat is another person's poison

Some characteristics can be either positive or negative depending on your point of view. The words in the right-hand column mean roughly the same as the words in the left-hand column except that they have negative rather than positive connotations.

Determined ð obstinate stubborn pig-headed

Thrifty/economical ð stingy mean tight-fisted miserly*

Self assured/confident ð self-important arrogant full of oneself* *

Unconventional/original ð eccentric odd peculiar weird**

Frank/direct/open ð blunt abrupt brusque curt

Broad-minded ð unprincipled permissive

Inquiring* ð inquisitive nosy**

Generous ð extravagant

Innocent ð naive

Ambitious ð pushy**

Assertive ð aggressive bossy**

*These words are much more common in written than in spoken English.

**These words are much more common in spoken than in written English.