An adjective should make a noun more specific, or vivid, or both. (The same goes for an adverb acting on a verb.) When Laurie Lee writes of his Cotswolds childhood that ‘we led marooned lives, marooned by nature and by lack of transport’, that repeated participle is perfect. Participles, used as modifiers, always inject a shot of verbal energy: running water, broken heart, lost soul, escaped lion.
