Character

Intellectual abilities: ability

• Intelligent: having intelligence and mental capacity.
• Bright: intelligent.
• Clever: having the capacity to learn and understand things quickly.
• Sharp: a person who notices things quickly.
• Shrewd: being able to understand a situation and gain advantage from it.
• Able: good at what you do.
• Gifted: to have a special ability in something.
• Talented: to have an ability or skill.
• Brainy (colloquial): clever and smart.

Intellectual abilities: lacking ability

• Stupid: silly or showing little intelligence.
• Foolish: being stupid and unwise.
• Half-witted: unintelligent.
• Simple: common and ordinary.
• Silly: lacking thought and showing poor judgement.
• Brainless (colloquial): stupid; lacking intelligence.
• Daft (colloquial): silly; stupid.
• Dumb (colloquial): stupid, lacking good judgment.
• Dim (colloquial): being slow in understanding something.

Clever in a negative way, using brains to trick or deceive

• Cunning: being so clever that you can get what you want even by tricking people.
• Crafty: clever in a dishonest way.
• Sly: a person who is sneaky and deceives people.

Attitudes towards life

• Optimistic: looking at the bright side of things and expecting a favourable outcome.
• Pessimistic: always considering the glass half-empty.
• Extroverted: friendly and outgoing.
• Introverted: a person who is shy and focused on his/her own thoughts and feelings.
• Tense: feeling stressed out or wound up for example after a busy day at work (I feel very tense / wound up / stressed out after a very busy day at work).
• Wound-up: very worried and nervous.
• Relaxed: not worried; without any kind of stress.
• Sensible: having good judgement; practical.
• Down-to-earth: practical and realistic.
• Sensitive: easily affected by things, situations, other factors or having emotional sensibility and taking care of the feelings of others.
• Worked-up: very upset.
• Sociable / Gregarious (more common in written English): enjoying others’ company.
• Quarrelsome / Argumentative: disagreeing with others.
• Cruel / Sadistic: taking pleasure in others’ pain.
• Easy-going / Even-tempered / Laid-back (more common in spoken English): relaxed in attitude to self and others.
• Impolite / Rude / Ill-mannered / Discourteous: (more common in written English: not polite to others.
• Honest / Trustworthy / Reliable / Sincere: telling the truth to others.
• Jealous / Envious: unhappy if others have what one does not have oneself.

 Positive and negative words

Positive associations

• Determined: obstinate in a positive way.
• Thrifty: frugal, careful with money.
• Economical: using the minimum required.
• Self-assured: to be sure of oneself.
• Confident: believing in oneself.
• Unconventional: not ordinary in a positive way.
• Original: not common. A person who thinks and behaves in an original way.
• Frank: direct.
• Open: honest and frank.
• Direct: saying things directly in a honest way.
• Broad-minded: open, tolerant and respecting other people’s views and opinions.
• Enquiring (more common in written English): questioning to seek information.
• Generous: kind, willing to share with people what one’s have and help people.
• Innocent: pure.
• Ambitious: eagerly willing to reach specific goals, achieve success, power.
• Assertive: determined and confident.

Negative associations

• Obstinate: unreasonably determined.
• Stubborn: not willing to change one’s opinion and behaviour; determined in what a person is doing refusing to change.
• Pig-headed: stupidly stubborn.
• Stingy: a person who does not want to spend money.
• Mean: a person who is not willing to share things and money.
• Tight-fisted: ungenerous with money.
• Miserly (more common in written English): typical of a miser; not generous with money.
• Self-important: a person with a high opinion of himself.
• Arrogant: being too much proud of himself.
• Full of oneself (more common in spoken English): self-assured in a negative way.
• Eccentric: unusual person.
• Odd: strange, different from what is expected.
• Peculiar: unusual and distinct from others.
• Weird (more common in spoken English): strange, different from usual.
• Blunt: direct but being impolite and not considering other people’s feelings.
• Abrupt: brusque in manner.
• Curt: very quick in manner and speech.
• Brusque: quick in manner resulting in being rude.
• Unprincipled: without moral principles.
• Permissive: allowing behaviours which are generally disapproved.
• Inquisitive: enquiring in a way you can annoy people.
• Noisy (more common in spoken English): annoyingly curious about other people’s facts.
• Extravagant: exaggerated.
• Naïve: innocent.
• Pushy (more common in spoken English): insistent in asking in trying to get something.
• Aggressive: being angry and violent with people.
• Bossy (more common in spoken English): a person who always tells people what to do.

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