"Othello" written by William Shakespeare play explores themes of jealousy, manipulation, betrayal

Do you know how to use the word 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

• 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

• There isn’t enough bread to make sandwiches.
• Have you got enough money?
• There aren’t enough nails.

Enough comes before nouns.

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.

• 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.

• 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.