Adjectives describe, or modify, nouns: big, soft, blue, lovely, horrible, pretty, English, cotton, round, seven . . . all adjectives.
Most of the time, we use one adjective to describe a noun:
- blue dress
- lovely flower
- five pencils
- young boy
Often, we use two consecutive adjectives to describe a noun:
- Beautiful blue dress
- lovely pink flower
- five yellow pencils
- young British boy
Occasionally we use three or more adjectives to describe a noun:
- Beautiful new blue dress
- lovely tiny pink flower
- five big yellow pencils
- tall young British boy
(Yes, sometimes you do need commas between some of them! Refer to the blog post about commas with adjectives.)
You probably don’t even notice, but adjectives follow a specific order in speaking and writing. If you put them in a different order, your sentence will sound weird. Native speakers put the adjectives in this order naturally. Here is the order:
- quantity or number: three, five, a dozen
- quality or opinion: beautiful, terrible, gloomy, crazy
- size: big, small, enormous, tiny
- age: old, young, five-year-old
- shape: oval, triangular, round
- color: blue, pink, orange, silver
- proper adjective: American, Indian, Japanese
- purpose or qualifier (often forms part of the noun itself): writing (pad), shredding (machine).
Some examples:
I have three cups.
I have three beautiful cups.
I have three beautiful tiny cups.
I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old cups.
I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round cups.
I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round multi-colored cups.
I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round multi-colored German cups.
I have three beautiful tiny old round multi-colored German drinking cups.
These just don’t sound right:
I have beautiful three cups.
I have three hundred-year-old round tiny cups.
I have three beautiful multicolored German hundred-year-old tiny cups.
So there is one thing in grammar you really don’t even have to think about!
You might be interested in another blog post about adjectives:
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Grammar Diva News
I will be speaking to the Entrepreneur Book Camp for students thinking of starting a business on June 12 and again on June 26. These bootcamps are sponsored by the Small Business Development Center.
Working on my new punctuation book, To Comma or Not to Comma, which should be out in July or August.
Coming attractions: Online courses in grammar and business writing.
As a teacher, I’ve gained a lot reading your article. Thanks a bunch.
Glad to hear it! Thank you so much!!
Such a great and useful information. Thank you very much!
You are very welcome!
Yeah, great job. But the author forgot adjectives describing material, like “leather” “wood” etc. They placed immediately before those describing purpose.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, some lists of the adjectives order include material; others don’t. I felt it was redundant with other types of adjectives and was just confusing, so I used the shorter list.
Hi Arlene
Great, greater, greatest explanations. Really appreciated. Kindest regards, Jennifer. Where do we order?
Thank you. What do you want to order? Blog subscription, just to to the subscribe page on the website. Books? Anywhere online, including Amazon. Links and info on the website. https://www.bigwords101.com
These elementary points on adjectives and their effective use will be extremely helpful, especially for those whose mother tongue is not English. Even at the graduate level students find it difficult to understand the nuances of English language. Your efforts will prove to be a helping hand for those who learn English as a foreign language/as a second language.
Well done and best wishes.
Dr.R.Gandhi Subramanian.
Thank you so much for the comment! I am happy to be of help.
Very interesting post. Very useful for EFL and ESL students. I shared it.
I am glad you found it helpful. Thank you for sharing it!
Great Post, thank you for writing it.
You are very welcome….and thank you!
Generally we speak without realizing the order in which we place the adjectives. It just seems to come naturally. Thank you!
Yes! It is one less thing we have to worry about in grammar!
Thanks, Arlene, well put.
You’re welcome! And thank you.
It’s an excellent, brief about the order of adjectives. Thank you very much madam.
You are very welcome!
Shouldn´t you have included “material” in that list?
Some adjective order lists include material; others do not. Material would appear after proper adjective (or origin) and before purpose.
Hi, thanks for info! I read the rule once as moving from objective to subjective adjectives. Quantity might not be in dispute but quality can be.
Hi, Susan – Thanks for the comment. Good point bout objective to subjective. I also noticed a couple of order rules could be questionable.