Order of Adjectives: English Grammar, Examples, and Tips

The order of adjectives is a set of rules dictating which descriptors or qualifiers go where when describing a noun. The order of adjectives differs from language to language. For example, in English grammar, adjectives tend to go before the noun they modify, but in Italian, French, and other romance languages, adjectives often follow the noun they modify.

The specific order of adjectives most likely comes intuitively to many native English speakers, but it in fact follows the royal order of adjectives. With a few exceptions, the word order goes as follows:

1. 1. Quantity: These adjectives describe the number or amount of something, like “four” or “a few.”
2. 2. Quality: These are adjectives that describe the type or condition of the noun being described, like “saucy” or “quirky.”
3. 3. Opinion: Opinion adjectives may overlap with quality adjectives but generally refer to a judgment or evaluation of the object being described, like “repugnant” or “enjoyable.”
4. 4. Size: This category of adjectives refers to how big something is, whether in general terms like “enormous” or more specific terms like “seven-foot.”
5. 5. Age: These adjectives tell you how old something is. Similar to the size category, they can be general, like “ancient,” or specific, like “ten-year-old.”
6. 6. Shape: Shape adjectives can describe either the specific geometric shape (like “square”) or the qualities of how an object exists in space (“skinny” or “wide”).
7. 7. Color: Color adjectives refer to the specific shade or range of colors the object exhibits, such as “blue” or “pale.”
8. 8. Proper: Proper adjectives usually refer to something’s origin, like “Babylonian” or “Nigerian.”
9. 9. Material: These adjectives tell you what an object is made of, like “wool” or “steel.”
10. 10. Purpose: Purpose adjectives describe what an object tends to be used for, like “tennis” in “tennis shoes.”

When applying the order of adjectives, there are a few related rules you need to consider.

1. 1. Determiners: Determiners always precede the adjectives modifying a noun and help define the specificity of the object you’re describing. They include possessives, like “my” or “our,” or articles like “the” or “that.”
2. 2. Multiple adjectives in a category: If your list of descriptors includes two adjectives from a given category, separate them with “and.” If it includes three or more adjectives from a given category, separate them with commas and “and.” For example, “the purple and green sneakers” or, if they’re even flashier, “the purple, green, and white sneakers.”
3. 3. Choose adjectives wisely: Although you certainly can use ten adjectives to describe one noun, it’s often more elegant to choose a smaller number of adjectives that more accurately describe the noun.

With your order of adjective rules in place, you can apply any number of modifiers to a noun, provided that you stick to the particular order outlined above. Here are a few examples:

1. 1. The five smelly, boisterous, tiny three-year-old children: This phrase includes quantity (five), quality (smelly), opinion (boisterous), size (tiny), and age (three-year-old).
2. 2. Some overpriced, massive, antique, blue muscle cars: This phrase includes quantity (some), opinion (overpriced), size (massive), age (antique), color (blue) and purpose (muscle).
3. 3. A few delicious, two-inch, round Italian cookies: This phrase includes opinion (delicious), size (two-inch), shape (round), and origin (Italian).

The right order of adjectives in the English language depends in large part on whether the adjectives in question fit into the same category. Cumulative adjectives are adjectives from different descriptive categories and must follow the order of adjectives. For example, in the phrase “the big, red sofa,” “big” and “red” are cumulative adjectives because “big” describes the size of the sofa and “red” describes the color.

Coordinate adjectives are in the same descriptive category, and you can generally place them in any order preceding the noun. For example, in the phrase “the oily, cheesy pizza,” “oily” and “cheesy” both describe an opinion about the pizza; therefore, you could therefore place them in any order.

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