The Order of Adjectives in a Series

The order in which adjectives in a series sort themselves

out is perplexing for people learning English as a second language. It takes a lot of
practice with a language before this order becomes instinctive, because the order
often seems quite arbitrary. There is, however, a pattern. You will find many
exceptions to the pattern in the hereunder table, but it is important to learn the
pattern of adjective order if it is not part of what you naturally bring to the
language.

The categories in the following table can be described as follows:

THE ORDER OF ADJECTIVES

Determiner Opinion Physical Description Origin Material Qualifier Noun

Size Shape Age Color

a beautiful new Italian touring car

an expensive old silver mirror

long-
four gorgeous stemmed
red silk roses

her short black hair

our big old English sheepdog

Those square wooden hat boxes

That dilapidated little hunting cabin

Determiners — articles and other limiters.

Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect
idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting)

Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large,
round)

Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)

Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)

Origin —adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American)

Material —adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., wooden, metallic)

Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair,
hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

It would be folly, of course, to run more than two or three (at the most)
adjectives together.

Furthermore, when adjectives belong to the same class, they become what we
call coordinated adjectives, and you will want to put a comma between them: the
inexpensive, comfortable shoes.

The rule for inserting the comma works this way

if you could have inserted a

conjunction — and or but —
between the two adjectives,
use a comma.

Practice yourself !!
1.-Place the adjectives given in brackets before the accompanying nouns,
arranging the adjectives in the correct order.

For example:
bags (heavy, three)
three heavy bags

windows (two, large,

the)
the two large windows

1. envelopes (large, four, her)

_______________________________________________________
2. tables (small, both, the)

_______________________________________________________
3. birds (tiny, those, three)

_______________________________________________________
4. brothers (tall, two, her)

________________________________________________________
5. quilts (six, thick, all)

__________________________________________________________
6. coats (heavy, his, two)

____________________________________________________________

7. rooms (these, four, huge)

___________________________________________________________

2-Place the adjectives given in brackets before the accompanying nouns,

arranging the adjectives in the correct order.
 Make sure that the general descriptive adjectives are
separated from one another by commas. For example:

mirror (small, octagonal, the, highly-polished)

the small, highly-polished, octagonal mirror

horses (frisky, their, young, three)

their three frisky, young horses

1. jacket (light, your, short-sleeved)

_______________________________________________________________
2. lenses (curved, small, three)

________________________________________________________________
3. puppy (four-week-old, our, damp, warm)

_________________________________________________________________
4. discoveries (two, unexpected)

__________________________________________________________________
5. carpet (heavy, a, round, thick)

_____________________________________________________________________