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  1. This is a story of Vienna triumphant.

  2. Whilst many now feared Napoleon’s expansionist ambitions, he was welcome when he rode into Vienna triumphant.

As far as I know, triumphant is merely an adjective, but the use in the two examples got me totally confused. Any help would be appreciated.

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In English it is most usual to place an adjective before the noun that it modifies - a cold day, a triumphant rider, but rarely you will find adjectives placed after the noun - they are said to be postnominal or postpositive. These chiefly appear in a restricted set of situations. Certain adjectives are found more often, and triumphant is one.

His formidable enemies defeated him on almost every side, yet in the end he emerged triumphant.

triumphant

ADJECTIVE

1 Having won a battle or contest; victorious.

‘two of their triumphant Cup team’

postpositive ‘a comic fairy tale about innocence triumphant’

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/triumphant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpositive_adjective

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  • thanks, and could you be so kind as to tell me what the sentence “a comic......innocence triumphant” means?
    – user69307
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 7:45
  • As for my second example, it is he that triumphant modifies, but they are so far from each other, is that also a postpositive case?
    – user69307
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 7:51
  • The usage "he rode into Vienna triumphant" doesn't feel like a postnominal to me, and it fits into a very common pattern: "he arrived elated", "he left besotted", "she rode naked". I've no idea what the grammatical construct is called.
    – Michael Kay
    Commented Sep 4, 2021 at 20:36

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