Adjectives: BORED vs. BORING

What is the difference in meaning between these two adjectives?

• a boring student
• a bored student

The first says something insulting about the student. If you want to describe a student who would rather be somewhere else, you should use the second.

A student might describe himself as bored and one of his lessons as boring. It is not a coincidence that these look like forms of the verb bore. Consider the following sentence: 

• The lesson bored the student.

If we wanted to focus on the role of the subject or the role of the object, we could rephrase it as one of the following:

• The lesson was boring. [progressive]
• The student was bored. [passive]

The subject (the lesson) of the active sentence can be described as boring and the object (the student) can be described as bored. It is the same when they are used as attributive adjectives:

• The boring lesson
• The bored student

Here are some other verbs that follow the same pattern:

• VERBS: interest/embarrass/relax/frighten/annoy

• PROGRESSIVE: interesting/embarrassing/relaxing/frightening/annoying
• PASSIVE: interested/embarrassed/relaxed/frightened/annoyed

In each case, the adjective with the -ing form can be used to describe the subject of the relevant active sentence, and the adjective with the -ed or -en form can be used to describe the object. For example, if we know that some photographs embarrassed a senator, we could describe them as the embarrassing photos and the embarrassed senator.

It is possible to derive adjectives from intransitive verbs too, but only the -ing form is possible because they lack objects:

• The baby slept.

• The sleeping baby
• NOT POSSIBLE: The slept baby

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