Adjectives order

Adjective Order

A new red Swiss army knife

When we use more than one adjective in a phrase, they usually follow this order:

	age	color	origin	material	purpose
a	new	red	Swiss	plastic	army	knife

We can have other types of adjectives which we put before the age. These are general adjectives about the size, the shape and our opinion of the noun. Often we can change the order of these adjectives but we usually put the most important first.

Here we are concerned with taste:

	opinion	size
a	tasty	big	sandwich

But if we think the most important thing about the sandwich is its size, we can say:

	size	opinion
a	big	tasty	sandwich

When you write, it is best not to use too many adjectives. Certainly, never more than two or, at most, three in a phrase:

the sharp, Swiss army knife

a big, thick sandwich