Adjectives (-ed / -ing)

1. The Core Difference

Many adjectives in English end in -ed or -ing. These adjectives are often connected to feelings and emotions, so it is important to understand the difference in meaning.

The most important question is:

Is the person feeling the emotion, or is the thing causing the emotion?

• -ed adjectives → describe how someone feels
• -ing adjectives → describe the person, thing, or situation that causes the feeling

In each pair, the -ed adjective tells us how someone feels, and the -ing adjective tells us what causes the feeling.

2. Sentence Patterns and Minimal Pairs

The two main patterns are:

Meaning	Structure	Example
someone experiences a feeling	subject + be/feel + -ed adjective	They feel excited.
someone or something causes a feeling	subject + be + -ing adjective	The trip is exciting.
an adjective describes a noun	a/an + -ing adjective + noun	a boring lecture, an interesting book, an exciting match

Compare the forms in the same situation:

Feeling (-ed)	Cause (-ing)
I am bored.	The movie is boring.
She is interested in art.	Art is interesting.
We were surprised.	The news was surprising.

Compare: the bored students (students who feel bored) and a boring lecture (a lecture that causes boredom).

3. Common -ed / -ing Adjective Pairs

Feeling (-ed)	Cause (-ing)
bored	boring
interested	interesting
excited	exciting
tired	tiring
surprised	surprising
confused	confusing
frightened	frightening
amazed	amazing
annoyed	annoying
disappointed	disappointing
embarrassed	embarrassing
worried	worrying

For common adjective + preposition patterns with interested, excited, bored, tired, worried, and annoyed, see section 5.

4. Tricky and Non-obvious Cases

People can also be “-ing”

An -ing adjective can describe a person when that person causes the feeling. Be careful: it does not describe how that person feels.

• I am excited about the concert. = I feel excitement.
• I am exciting. = I cause excitement in other people.
• Leo is annoying. = Leo causes annoyance.

Some pairs are not equally common

Both embarrassed and embarrassing are common, but they describe different sides of the situation:

• I was embarrassed by my mistake.
• My mistake was embarrassing.
• My dad is embarrassing when he dances. = His behaviour makes me feel embarrassed.

Not every feeling adjective has a common -ing partner. English sometimes uses a different adjective for the cause:

• The child was scared. / The noise was scary.
• We were upset. / The news was upsetting.

Scaring is usually part of a verb (The noise was scaring the child).

Participles from Other Verbs

Participles from other verbs can also be adjectives. An -ing adjective often describes something active or causing an effect, while an -ed adjective often describes something affected by an action.

• a broken window
• a running tap
• the following week
• a used car

5. Adjective + Preposition Patterns

Some adjectives are often followed by prepositions.

Pattern	Example
interested in + noun/gerund	“I am interested in science.”
excited about + noun/gerund	“She is excited about the trip.”
bored with/by + noun/gerund	“He was bored with the game.” / “We were bored by the long speech.”
tired of + noun/gerund	“I am tired of waiting.”
worried about + noun/gerund	“They are worried about the exam.”
annoyed at/by + noun/gerund	“She was annoyed at the delay.” / “He was annoyed by the noise.”
surprised at/by + noun	“I was surprised by the news.”
frightened of + noun	“She is frightened of spiders.”
confused about/by + noun	“We were confused about the instructions.”
disappointed with/in + noun	“He was disappointed with the result.”
amazed at/by + noun	“They were amazed at the view.”

6. Quick Recap

Think:

• -ed → how people feel
• -ing → what causes the feeling

Remember that a person can be -ing when they cause a feeling, and learn the preposition that commonly follows each -ed adjective.