♔ ADJECTIVE ORDER

 Adjectives in English cannot be written in any order.  There are rules, so you should use SOME order. Mind you, we usually use no more than three adjectives preceding a noun, but it is possible to get four or even more and can be grammatically correct.  Notice also that the adjectives are not separated by commas.

Examples:

The big black dog ate my sandwich.

I like that nice blue American car.

The order of the adjectives is usually as followed:

1.  Determiner -  articles and other limiters:

Example:  a, an, her, five, many, much several etc.

2.  Opinion -  An opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people may not agree with you).

Example:  pretty, ugly, smart, cheap etc.

3.  Size -  A size adjective, of course, tells you how big or small something is.

Example:  big, fat, thin, tall, large, small etc.

4.  Age -  An age adjective tells you how young or old something or someone is.

Example:  old, young, a year, a week, new etc.

5.  Shape -  A shape adjective describes the shape of something.

Example:  circle, square, tall, short etc.

6.  Colour -  A colour adjective, of course, describes the colour of something.

Example:  yellow, green, pink etc.

7.  Origin -  An origin adjective describes where something comes from.

Example:  American, English, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, European, Chinese etc.

8.  Material -  A material adjective describes what something is made from.

Example:  cotton, wood, plastic, cloth, glass, gold etc.

9.  Purpose/Qualifier -  A purpose adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives often end with "-ing".

Example:  sleeping (as in "sleeping bag")

10.  Noun -  The noun that the adjectives are describing.

Example:  computer, island, country, house, etc.