This document defines nouns and adjectives and provides examples of each from the short story "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. Nouns are names of things, people, ideas or feelings, while adjectives describe nouns. The document then lists several noun-adjective pairs from the story, such as "sadness-sad", "wisdom-wise", and "happiness-happy", along with short excerpts about how they are used.

1. Nouns and Adjectives
Great American Stories 1, page 10

2. A noun is the name of a thing or a
person or an idea or feeling:
• This class is big.
• Ms. Agard is the teacher.
• O. Henry thinks that love is very
important.

3. An adjective describes a noun:
• This class is big.
• Today is warm.
• O. Henry thinks that love is very
important.

4. Nouns and Adjectives in “The Gift of
the Magi”
Noun Adjective
sadness sad
wisdom wise
happiness happy
heaviness heavy
expense expensive

5. 1. sad/sadness
Della’s sadness came from not
having enough money to buy Jim a
present. But she was not sad to lose
the great treasure of her air. Why?

6. 2. wise/wisdom
People say that great wisdom
comes with old age. Do the Magi on
page 5 look wise? Do they look old?

7. 3. happy/happiness
Della was happy to see Jim’s
beautiful gift. But her greatest
happiness came from giving a gift
to Jim.

8. 4. heavy/heaviness
The heaviness of Della’s hair
surprised Madame Sophronie.
“With hair this heavy, she thought,
“I will make a lot of money.”

9. 4. expensive/expense
The expense of a good watch chain
was too great for Jim. But at the
end of the story he had an
expensive watch chain. And no
watch!