Adjective word order
We will often use more than one adjective to describe a noun:
- an interesting, old book
- long, blond hair
Adjectives word order - main groups:
- Adjectives of opinion – what we think about something (nice, interesting, boring, ugly)
- Adjectives of fact – factual information about size, colour, age etc.
Adjective word order: be careful!
When using adjectives, we follow a particular order. Usually, adjectives of opinion come before adjectives of fact: a beautiful, young woman.
There are many different categories of fact adjectives. Some of the most common of these are:
- Size
- Age
- Colour
- Origin
- Material
Form of adjective word order:
If we wanted to make a sentence using all of these adjectives, they would take the following order:
| opinion | → | size | → | age | → | colour | → | origin | → | material | → | noun |
e.g. I bought a beautiful, big, new, black, Italian, leather handbag.
Here are a few more examples:
- I slept in an enormous, old, Victorian bed.
- It was a small, modern, red, brick house.
- He had an exciting, new business idea.
- I saw the most magnificent, old, French, marble statue.
- He wore a pair of ugly, old, brown, rubber sandals.
