French adjectives that change meaning depending on whether they come before or after the noun

If you've watched our video on adjectival placement, you'll know that most adjectives come after the noun they describe, while a select few (what we call the B.A.G.S. adjectives – beauty, age, good & bad, and size) come before. Of course, there are a few basic rules which can change this, but in most other circumstances, adjectives fall either on one side or the other.

However, you may have noticed that there are some adjectives that can come both before and after the noun. This doesn't mean that their placement is interchangeable. Rather, these are a select class of adjectives whose meaning changes depending on their placement.

For some of these adjectives, you may have learnt one definition but not the other. Or you may have learnt both definitions but be unaware that that definition changes depending on their placement. Others you may never have encountered at all. Luckily, there aren't too many of them, but they are common, so we strongly recommend learning these words – and their placements and respective definitions – off by heart.