Prepositions with Adjectives

When an adjective needs more information to complete its meaning, it is often followed by a complement — and that complement frequently begins with a preposition. These adjective-preposition pairings are known as adjective complements, and they are among the most common structures in everyday English. Megan was afraid of thunderstorms — without of thunderstorms, the sentence feels incomplete: afraid of what, exactly?

The largest and most versatile group is adjective + of. It expresses the cause of an emotion — afraid of, scared of, terrified of — but also judgement and evaluation — kind of, nice of — and states of being — proud of, tired of. Closely related is adjective + about, which tends to describe emotional reactions to situations or events: angry about, anxious about, excited about, happy about.

When you need to describe a skill or ability, reach for adjective + at: good at, bad at, terrible at. This is one of the most useful patterns for talking about what you can and cannot do. For relationships and comparisons, use adjective + with to express feelings towards people (angry with, pleased with, disappointed with) and adjective + to for connection and similarity (married to, similar to, accustomed to, opposed to).

Other important pairings include famous for, responsible for, interested in, involved in, and different from. The pattern adjective + at/by is particularly flexible: you can be amazed at or amazed by, shocked at or shocked by — both are interchangeable in most contexts, so you can use whichever sounds better to you in the moment.

A powerful memorisation strategy: synonyms almost always share the same preposition. If you know angry with, then furious with and annoyed with follow naturally. Remarkably, antonyms follow the pattern too — good at pairs with bad at, interested in pairs with uninterested in. Learn one and you often get its opposite for free.