Describing Peoples Appearance in English Visual Vocabulary Lesson
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He’s well-built, with broad shoulders.
He’s very muscular.
‘Well-built’ means big, but big because
of muscle, not fat.
The opposite of well-built is ‘skinny’.
You can say ‘He’s very muscular’ or
‘He’s very muscly’.
They have the same meaning.
There are other ways to say the same thing;
for example, ‘He looks strong.’
She’s in good shape.
She has an athletic physique.
‘She’s in good shape’ has the same meaning
as ‘She’s fit.’
‘Fit’ describes someone who exercises
regularly and is very strong.
Conversationally, in British English, ‘fit’
means ‘attractive’.
It can be used for men and women.
The word ‘physique’ means the shape and
condition of your body.
‘Physique’ is most often used with positive
adjectives to describe someone who is strong,
or who has an attractive body.
For example, the collocations ‘muscular
physique’ and ‘strong physique’ are
common.
He’s skinny.
He has a slight build.
What’s the opposite of ‘fat’?
Actually, there are several words.
‘Thin’ is the basic word.
‘Slim’ is similar; it means ‘thin and
attractive’.
‘Skinny’ is a more negative word.
It suggests that someone is too thin.
If you say that someone is skinny, it means
you think they should eat more.
Your ‘build’ is the shape of your body:
whether you’re broad or thin, whether you’re
muscular or not, and so on.
You can use many different adjectives with
‘build’.
Common ones are ‘medium build’, ‘slim
build’, ‘proportionate build’ and ‘stocky
build’.
‘Stocky’ means big or wide, usually with
muscle rather than fat.
He’s overweight.
He has a gut.
‘Overweight’ is a more indirect word than
‘fat’, although neither is polite if you
are talking directly to someone.
A gut means a big stomach.
You might use it to describe someone who has
a lot of extra weight on their stomach.
You could also say ‘He has a big belly’,
which has the same meaning.
He has chiselled features, with high cheekbones.
He has very well-defined facial features.
This is a chisel.
It’s a tool which is used to carve stone,
for example to make a sculpture or statue.
‘Chiselled features’ means that someone’s
facial features are very attractive and clearly-defined,
like a statue.
It’s generally used for men’s faces.
‘Well-defined’ is similar, but can
be used for men or women.
If your facial features are well-defined,
then your cheekbones, jaw, chin and so on
have a clear shape.
This has a positive meaning, although it doesn’t
necessarily mean ‘attractive’.
He has crow’s feet.
He has faint wrinkles in his forehead.
As you get older, you’ll get lines or wrinkles
in your face.
Crow’s feet are the patterns of wrinkles
you get in the corner of your eyes.
Wrinkles can be ‘faint’ – light and
difficult to see – or ‘deep’.
She has dimples when she smiles.
She has freckles on her nose and cheeks.
‘Dimples’ here means small holes in your
cheeks which appear when you smile.
Not everyone has them.
Although it’s not common, you can use the
word ‘dimple’ to refer to similar holes
in other places.
For example, some people have a dimple on
their chin.
Freckles are common among people with very
light skin.
Going out into the sun can make your skin more
freckled.
She has a round face, with a high forehead.
She has a double chin.
You can use many adjectives to describe the
shape of someone’s face, such as: round,
thin, symmetrical, long, or square.
If someone is overweight, they might have
a double chin.
He has a goatee.
He’s going grey.
‘Goatee’ is a common word; it’s a beard
which covers your chin and upper lip only.
You can also have a full beard, which covers
your whole face and neck.
There are many words for different styles
of beard, but most of them are not commonly
used, except by beard experts.
If you say ‘he’s going grey’, ‘going’
means ‘becoming’.
You can use ‘go’ in this way for changes
in someone’s hair; for example ‘go grey’
or ‘go bald’.
You can also use it if someone’s face changes
colour.
For example ‘She went bright red’ or ‘He
went pale when he heard the news’.
He has curly black hair.
She has thick shoulder-length curly hair.
‘Curly’ describes hair with tight curls.
What’s the opposite?
The opposite is ‘straight hair’.
In the middle, you can have ‘wavy hair.’
For length, you can say hair is long, short,
medium length, or shoulder length.
For very long hair, you might say something
like ‘Her hair reached down to her waist’.
He’s bald, with a thick beard.
She has long blonde hair.
‘Bald’ only refers to people who have
lost their hair, usually because of aging.
If someone shaves their hair off, you can
say ‘He has a shaved head’.
Hair can be thick or thin; you can use these
adjectives for hair on your head, or for facial
hair: beards and moustaches.
When talking about hair, be careful with adjective
order.
Adjectives like ‘long’, ‘short’, ‘thick’
or ‘thin’ go before the colour.
So, you can have ‘long brown hair’, ‘thick
dark hair’, ‘short fair hair’, and so
on.
He has fair hair.
His hair is shaved short at the back and sides,
and swept to one side on top.
‘Fair hair’ is similar to ‘blond hair’,
but is has a wider meaning.
‘Fair’ just means ‘light’, so it could
include light brown hair or dark blond hair.
‘Sweep’ generally means to clean your
floor with a broom.
However, you can also use it for hair, especially
when you push your hair in one direction.
You can sweep your hair to one side, sweep
your hair into a ponytail, or sweep your hair
back.
That’s all for this lesson.
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