TESOL/Gradable words

You can say "very good" and "absolutely fantastic." Why can't you say "very fantastic" or "absolutely good?"

Some words in English are essentially very strong in meaning or indicate a category in which membership is absolute. For example, "perfect" is the extreme of "good," "freezing" is the extreme of "cold," and "hilarious" is the extreme of "funny." These extreme words are known as non-gradable, and words that can be modified in degree are known as gradable.

Mechanics

Absolutely and completely

Non-gradable words describing extremes or absolutely take "absolutely" or "completely." You cannot use "absolutely" or "completely" with words that are not extreme in meaning.

Gradable	Non-gradable
very cold	~~very freezing~~
~~absolutely cold~~	absolutely freezing

They're completely dead. ~~They're very dead~~
That's completely impossible. ~~That's very impossible.~~

Quite

The word quite is unusual in that it can be used for both gradable and non-gradable words.

Today is quite cold/freezing.
Your cooking is quite good/delicious.
I was quite surprised/amazed.

Examples

Below is a table of pairs of gradable and non-gradable words:

Gradable	Non-gradable
good	delicious
good	fantastic awesome great perfect
funny	hilarious
cold	freezing
strange	bizarre
special	unique
bad	horrible awful terrible
surprising	unbelievable amazing
surprised	amazed astonished
hungry	starving
hard	impossible
hot	scorching boiling

Quiz

Turn these plain sentences into stronger ones by changing the word in italics.