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Order of adjectives

Adjective order

Order of adjectives

When we use more than one adjective to describe something (e.g. A big, red car) there are rules about which order the adjectives come in.

Colour, origin, material, purpose

Just before the noun come adjectives that tell you the purpose of the noun.

· A dining table.

· A tennis racket.

In these sentences ‘dining’ and ‘tennis’ are adjectives that tell us the purpose of the noun.

Before ‘purpose’ come adjectives that tell us what something is made of – the ‘material’

· A wooden dining table.

· A plastic lunch box.

‘Wooden’ and ‘plastic’ tell us the material that the noun is made from. Other ‘material’ adjectives include ‘steel’, ‘metal’, ‘woollen’, ‘stone, ‘leather’ etc.

Before ‘material’ come adjectives that talk about ‘origin’ – where something comes from.

· A Swedish wooden dining table.

· Egyptian cotton bed sheets.

Before ‘origin’ comes colour.

· A black Swedish wooden dining table.

· A bright blue dressing gown.

· Some red leather shoes.

So, the order of adjectives is:

COLOUR then ORIGIN then MATERIAL then PURPOSE

It’s important to remember that it’s unusual to have all of these adjectives in one sentence.

Other adjectives

Other adjectives can describe the size or age of something and also our opinion of it.

Adjectives describing ‘size’, ‘length’ or ‘age’ come before ‘colour’, ‘origin’, ‘material’ and ‘purpose’.

· He drives a big Japanese car.

· She’s got long black hair.

· They live in an old stone farmhouse in France.

An adjective that gives our opinion of something usually comes before all other adjectives.

· She’s got beautiful long black hair.

· He’s wearing an expensive Italian silk suit.

Finally, numbers usually come before adjectives.

· We bought four beautiful Swedish dining chairs.

· They’ve got two lovely children.