Adjectives
To talk about dimensions, you can use basic adjectives that come in opposite pairs. So, you might live in a big (or large) or small flat; your rooms may have high or low ceilings; your garden could have a high or a low fence round it; and you might be tall or short and have long or short hair.
To emphasize that things are very big or very small, you can use other adjectives: enormous, massive or huge all mean “very big”; tiny, minute or microscopic all mean “very small”:
- They’ve got an enormous yacht in the Caribbean. They must have massive amounts of money.
- The food at the restaurant was good but the portions were microscopic.
Precise dimensions
To indicate precise dimensions, you can give a measurement + adjective:
- He’s two metres tall.
- The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is 830 metres high.
The UK has used metric measurements since 1965, but people still sometimes use the older measurements inch (2.54 cm), foot (30.58 cm) and yard (0.91 m):
- He’s over six foot tall.
- I woke up suddenly and saw a rat on my bed. It was just inches from my face!
- She was sitting a few feet away, so I couldn’t see what she was reading.
To ask about dimensions, you can use How + adjective:
- How high is the ceiling in this room?
- How big is your cellar?
To ask more precisely, you can use the nouns size, height or length:
- What size shirts do you wear? – XL!
- What length are the curtains? – They’re 82 centimetres long.