Order of Adjectives

Level A2 · Adjectives & Adverbs

When two or more adjectives describe the same noun, English fixes their order by category, not by which one 'sounds' more important — a small black dog, never a black small dog. Native speakers follow this order automatically; for learners, it's a rule worth memorizing explicitly, since getting it wrong is one of the clearest signs of a non-native sentence even when every individual word is correct.

The standard order runs through eight categories, though in practice only two or three usually stack together:

• Opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose — in that order: a lovely small old round black Italian leather travel bag stacks all eight, though a real sentence almost never needs more than two or three at once.
• Opinion words (lovely, terrible, amazing) always come before every other category, including size: a lovely small house, not a small lovely house. Physical/objective categories (size, age, shape, colour, origin, material) follow their own fixed order after that: a small(size) old(age) round(shape) black(colour) Italian(origin) leather(material) bag.
• When two adjectives are from the same category (two colours, or two opinions), link them with and instead of stacking them: a red and white flag, not a red white flag; a cheap and cheerful café.

The most common mistake is putting a size or age adjective before an opinion adjective — a small lovely house sounds wrong; opinion always comes first: a lovely small house. A second frequent error is stacking two same-category adjectives without and — a red white flag is wrong; same-category adjectives need and between them: a red and white flag.

Look for two or more descriptive words stacked before a noun with no comma or and between them — that's the cue to check the order runs opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. If two adjectives are clearly the same category (two colours, two materials), expect and linking them instead.

Practice

Order of Adjectives · Same-Category Adjectives & Mixed Practice