Adjectives Order

The order of more then 2 adjectives in a sentence.

  1. In most cases the adjective is placed before the noun.

  2. There is an order that is used when using more then 2 adjectives together. The order in some cases can be changed, but it is a good guidlines for ESL and EFL students that are learning English.

  3. It is not common to used more then 3 adjectives together, but it is possible and can be grammatically correct.

  4. When there are 2 or more adjectives that are from the same group* "and" is placed between the 2 adjectives.

  5. When there are 3 or more adjectives from the same adjective group, then a comma is placed between the are from the same group.*. A comma is not placed between an adjective and a noun.

  6. When an article is used such as "a", "an" or "the" the articles are placed before the adverb. The article must agree with the noun grammatically.

  7. The adjectives must agree with the noun grammatically.

*The 9 different adjective groups are listed below.

The order of the adjectives is as followed:

  1. Determiner - a, an, her, five, many, much several etc.

  2. Opinion - pretty, ugly, smart, cheap, etc.

  3. Size - big, fat, thin, tall, large, small etc.

  4. Shape - circle, square, tall, short etc.

  5. Age - old, young 10 years, a year, a week, new etc.

  6. Color - yellow, green, pink etc.

  7. Origin - American, English, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, European, Chinese etc.

  8. Material - cotton, wood, plastic, cloth, glass, gold etc.

  9. Purpose/Qualifier -

  10. hat box, sleeping bag, computer table,safe island, football field. (The words in green are the purpose/qualifer words.)

Examples:

  1. The big black dog ate my food.

  2. I like that pretty green sofa.

  3. I want to go to a big, quit, safe.

  4. We sleep in a small, pink and green room.