Difference between “delight” and “delightful” [closed]

Question

I am wondering if there is really a difference between delight and delightful.

I would like to make a title for a French cooking app and was thinking of this:

MyApp - Homemade delightful French recipes

Does that sound correct? Or should I use delight instead? Is the order of adjectives used correct too?

Answer 1

There are times where we force a noun into the job of an adjective, and have it modify another noun. However:

1. We don't do it if there's a common adjective that does the same job.
2. We do it to classify, but not to add an opinion.

So we've two reasons why we would only go for delightful here.

Adjective order is a bit more complicated, but tends to be along the lines of:

1. Determiners (a, several, numbers, sometimes considered separate to adjectives)
2. General opinion (good, bad that can apply to anything)
3. Specific opinion (tasty, intelligent, profitable that only make sense with certain nouns)
4. Size
5. Shape
6. Age
7. Colour
8. Place of origin
9. Material or manufacture.
10. Purpose
11. Qualifier. A case where something is closely bound to the noun to significantly distinguish it for other case (often the same as purpose above, quite often a noun used as an adjective, and quite often part of a common idiom).

So here we'd expect to have put delightful (general opinion), French (origin) then homemade (manufacture). With food though, the country of origin is strongly bound as a qualifier—a primary way we distinguish between cuisines—so we'd have "delightful homemade French".

As argued by others though, "homemade recipe" doesn't really work, as homemade more often refers to the product than the formula.

So "delightful French recipes for homemade X" (where X is some sort of food), or "delightful recipes for homemade French X" would make more sense.

Since it's an app presumably aimed at those who will be cooking or baking at home, I'd just use "delightful French recipes".

Answer 2

Delightful is an adjective, so it is correct in your phrase. Delight, which can be a noun or a verb, would be incorrect.

Also, in terms of adjective order, your phrase should be Delightful homemade French recipes. For a short descriptive phrase like this, I don't think you need to use any commas at all.

Also, I don't like homemade modifying recipes. Homemade typically refers to food, or a specific kind of food, or cooking. Recipes can be used to cook at home, at a restaurant, or conceivably anywhere else. I did not find one reference to homemade recipes on Google Books corpora.

To refer to folksy, rural recipes, there are phrases such as down-home cooking or down-home recipes, but they typically apply only to cuisine of the rural American South.

Perhaps others will disagree with my opinion that homemade recipes is strange, and/or be able to suggest other options in its place.

Answer 3

The difference between delight and delightful is that the first is a noun and the second is an adjective.

The normal order in your example would be delightful homemade French recipes. The problem with that, however, is that it suggests that the recipes are homemade, when I suspect you want to convey is the idea that they are recipes for homemade dishes. In that case, you would have to say Recipes for delightful homemade French dishes. Even then, I’m not sure that delightful is really the adjective you want. It isn’t normally applied to food.

Answer 4

Yes, "delight" is a noun and "delightful" is an adjective. So the best phrasing would be "Delightful homemade French recipes." There are three adjectives and one noun: A delicious grammar recipe, indeed.