Adjective Order

Adjectives cannot be written in any order Adjectives cannot be written in any order. There are rules, so you should use the following order: 1. Determiner or article Determiners e.g. this, that, these, those, my, mine, your, yours, him, his, her, hers, they, their, Sam's ; or Articles - a, an, the

2. Opinion adjective e.g. polite, fun, cute, difficult, hard-working 3. Size, including adjectives, comparatives and superlatives height; e.g. tall, short, high, low; taller, tallest width; e.g. wide, narrow, thin, slim; wider, widest length; e.g. long, short; longer, longest volume; e.g. fat, huge; fatter, fattest

4. Shape e.g. circular, oval, triangular, square, 5-sided, hexagonal, irregular 5. Age e.g. new, young, adolescent, teenage, middle-aged, old, ancient 6. Colour e.g. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, grey, black, black and white, light blue, dark red, pale blue, reddish brown, off-white, bright green, warm yellow

7. Nationality e.g. Hong Kong, Chinese, English, American, Canadian, Japanese 8. Religion e.g. Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Moslem, pagan, atheist 9. Material e.g. wood, plastic, metal, ceramic, paper, silk 10. Noun used as an adjective e.g. campus (as in 'campus activities')

11. The noun that the adjectives are describing. Sentence structure: Together the article or determiner, adjective(s) and noun(s) make a 'noun phrase'. Noun phrases can also have adverbs describing the adjectives; e.g. nearly circular; and can also have relative clauses, although these are not discussed on this page.

The Order Determiner or article, opinion, size, shape, age, colour, nationality, religion, material, noun used as an adjective; then the main noun.

Style: Although it is possible to write a sentence that uses all the categories; e.g. 'my beautiful, long, curving, new, pink, western, Christian, silk wedding dress', it is bad style as it is too long. Try to use less than five adjectives in a single list. Therefore you could say "Have you seen my beautiful new cream silk wedding dress? It's long and curving, and is in western Christian style."

1. desk office big ugly an wooden brown Correct the order: 1. desk office big ugly an wooden brown 2. hair long black straight my sister's 3. photograph black white and oval a family historic 4. vase jade Ming beautiful a antique little green 5.computer laptop high-tech brand-new deep university's blue my

Answers An ugly big brown wooden office desk. My sister's long straight black hair. A historic oval black and white family photograph. A beautiful little antique green jade Ming vase. My university's high-tech brand-new deep blue laptop computer.