Order of Adjectives

In the comments section of my recent video on the Parts of Speech, Jacqueline H said “Thank you. Your teaching is the key to mastering the English Language.” oh Thank you very much Jaqueline. “The fast red car.” Could I say, “The red fast car”? How can I know which adjective I should list first if I use several adjectives in a sentence?”

This is a great question and it is something that we don’t talk about much. There is a correct order of adjectives and most native speakers of English know this but they don’t know they know this. It is something that we pick up naturally and if someone uses adjectives in the wrong order it sounds weird.

Order of Adjectives

There are eight different categories of adjectives used to describe eight different broad attributes.

opinion, 

• size, 
• age, 
• shape, 
• colour, 
• origin, 
• material, 
• purpose

Types of adjectives

Opinion adjectives describe how we feel about something, for example, “beautiful” or “interesting”.

Size adjectives describe the size of something, for example, “small” or “large”.

Age adjectives describe the age of something, for example, “old” or “new”.

Shape adjectives describe the shape of something, for example, “round” or “square”.

Colour adjectives describe the colour of something, for example, “blue” or “red”.

Origin adjectives describe where something is from, for example, “Italian” or “Chinese”. 

Material adjectives describe what something is made of, for example, “wooden” or “metallic”.

Purpose adjectives describe what something is used for, for example, “cooking” or “driving”.

This is also the order in which these adjectives should be used in a sentence. Opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, and purpose. 

This is a guideline rather than a rule. Some people say the “rule” has shape and age the other way around. Also, some nouns are compound nouns which include an adjective like orange juice. In these cases, you don’t split them up. You wouldn’t say delicious orange Spanish juice. You would say delicious Spanish orange juice.

So, what about when we have more than one adjective in the same category? Some categories, like size, age, shape, and purpose can normally only be describe with one adjective because it would be mutually exclusive. A house can’t be large and small, a car can’t be old and new. But a person can be African American or British Chinese. With this it is also sometimes possible to put the adjectives in an order that sounds wrong, but I don’t think there is a rule as such because each situation is different.

However, colocation plays and important part. We say “A black and white Zebra” not a White and black Zebra”. 

The order of adjectives is a funny thing. Most native speakers know the order and recognize when one is out of place. The sentence will sound clunky and wrong. But nobody really knows why it is like this. It is just a mystery.

Let’s end with an exercise. Think of a sentence describing something with lots of adjectives and write it in the comments section.

If you want more help improving your English, then head on over to Patreon.com/LearnEnglish, or you can use the card in the corner or the link in the description. 

There you will find a pdf worksheet for this lesson that you can download and another video to go with the worksheet.

There are also loads of other videos, the chance to have classes with me and ask question which I will answer in a personalised for you and loads of other benefits.