Enough
‘Enough’ can qualify an adjective or an adverb or it can go with a noun or even act as a pronoun.
With adjectives and adverbs
With adjectives and adverbs
- She isn’t tall enough to be a ballet dancer.
- I’m afraid your work just isn’t good enough.
- I couldn’t write quickly enough and I ran out of time.
- I haven’t been to lessons often enough to have really learnt much.
Enough comes after adjectives and adverbs.
With nouns
With nouns
- There isn’t enough bread to make sandwiches.
- Have you got enough money?
- There aren’t enough nails.
Enough comes before nouns.
Enough of
Enough of
There isn’t enough of bread
We don’t use enough of unless there is a determiner (an article, this/that, my/your/his etc).
We use enough of when there is a determiner.
We use enough of when there is a determiner.
- I’ve had enough of your nonsense! ‘Your’ is a determiner here.
- I haven’t seen enough of the film to really form an opinion.
Enough can also be used without a noun.
- That’s enough! Be quiet!
- Enough is enough.
With adjective and noun
When ‘enough’ is used with an adjective and a noun, two positions are possible but the meaning changes. Look at these two sentences.
When ‘enough’ is used with an adjective and a noun, two positions are possible but the meaning changes. Look at these two sentences.
- We haven’t got big enough nails. None of the nails are as big as we need.
- We haven’t got enough big nails. We have some big nails but we need more.
When enough comes between the adjective and the noun (big enough nails) it qualifies the adjective – it tells us that the nails aren’t big enough. When enough comes before the adjective it qualifies the noun phrase – it tells us that there aren’t enough nails
