Describing people: Character

A:Intellectual ability
Ability: intelligent, bright, clever, smart, shrewd, able, gifted, talented, brainy.
Lacking ability: stupid, foolish, half-witted, simple, silly, brainless, daft, dumb.

B:Attitudes towards life
Looking on either the bright or the black side of the things: optimistic, pessimistic.
Outward looking or inward looking: extroverted, introverted.
Calm or not calm with regard to attitude to life: relaxed, tense.
Practical, not dreamy in approach to life: sensible, down-to-earth.
Feeling things very intensely: sensitive.

C:Attitudes towards other people
Enjoying others' company: sociable, gregarious.
Disagreeing with others: quarrelsome, argumentative.
Taking pleasure in others' pain: cruel, sadistic.
Relaxed in attitude to self and others: easy-going, even-tempered.
Not polite to others: impolite, rude, ill-mannered, discourteous.
Telling the truth to others: honest, trustworthy, reliable, sincere.
Unhappy if others have what one does not have oneself: jealous, envious.


D) One person's meat in another person's poison
Some characteristics can be either positive or negative depending on your point of view. The words in the right-hand column mena roughly the same as the words in the left-hand column except that they have negative rather than positive connotations.
Determined obstinate, stubborn, pig-headed.
Thrifty/economical miserly, mean, tight-fisted.
Self-assured self-important, arrogant, full of oneself.
Assertive aggressive, bossy (colloquial)
Original pecualiar, weird, eccentric, odd.
Frank/direct/open blunt, abrupt, brusque, curt.
Broad-minded unprincipled, permissive.
Inquiring inquisitive, nosy (colloquial)
Generous extravagant.
Innocent naive.
Ambitious pushy (colloquial)
Exercice: Do the following exercice and check your answers below.
Match these words with their opposites.
1 clever introverted
2 extroverted tight-fisted
3 rude courteous
4 cruel gregarious
5 generous kind-hearted
6 unsociable halfd-witted.