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Adjective Order

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This jumbled sentence game helps you learn about and practise typical English adjective order. Set 2 1. Fun to play. Helps grammar. Ideal for learners of English. Play free online.

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Win the game choosing the correct answer

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1) A man wearing a a) Denim blue jacket b) Blue denim jacket c) A Jacket blue denim 2) I can't stand the...he plays a) Awful modern music b) Music modern awful c) Moder awful music 3) We used to live in a...house near the river a) Wooden beautiful old b) Old beautiful wooden c) Beautiful old wooden 4) I' ve lost a... scarf a) Silk long black b) Long black silk c) Silk black long 5) I' m going to wear my .... to the party. a) New striped shirt b) Striped new shirt c) Shirt new striped

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1) A man wearing a 2) I can't stand the...he plays 3) We used to live in a...house near the river 4) I' ve lost a... scarf

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SOCIAL MEDIA/ ADJECTIVES- WORD ORDER

Pragmatic: At the end of the lesson, students will be able to form sentences and the grammar and order of adjectives. Linguistic: Students will be able to carry out small dialogues using the correct order of adjectives through the context of social networks.

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Presentación Trabajo Proyecto Creativo Profesional Marketing Multicolor

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Adjectives- Word Order

OSASCOMP

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English Grammar

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Adjectives- Word Order

Colored Chart

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9. (VIDEO) ENGLISH VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR TEST

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9. (VIDEO) ENGLISH VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR TEST

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Order of Adjectives

Vocabulary Test

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Order of Adjectives | English Vocabulary Test

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Adjectives Order

English Lesson Grammar

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Order of Adjectives

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English Grammar Lesson

Learning the adjectives order word

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Adjective Order in English - English Grammar Lesson

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Order of Adjectives

Rules, usage and examples

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Are you a person who loves to describe things, animals, people and everything around you? If you are, you would definitely know a lot of adjectives, but are you sure if you are using them in the right order? Yes, you heard it right. There is a particular order in which adjectives have to be written when more than one adjective is used to describe the same subject or object. This article on the order of adjectives will teach you how to place adjectives effectively in a sentence. Check out the examples to have a better idea of the same.

Table of Contents

What Is the Order of Adjectives?

The English language gives its users the liberty to use multiple adjectives to describe everything they can perceive with their five senses. There is, however, a particular order in which these adjectives should be used in a sentence. Let us look at how it works.

The first component that should be placed in a sentence according to the order of adjectives is the determiner. Determiners include possessive adjectives, demonstrative adjectives, demonstrative pronouns and articles. For example: my, his, your, her, their, its, this, that, these, those, a, an and the.

Then comes the quantity of the particular object in the second place. For example: two, ten, a dozen, many, much, a few, several, etc.

A person's opinions about a particular noun is placed in the third position in a sentence with multiple adjectives. Just keep in mind that opinions can be general or specific. For example: beautiful, tasty, precious, horrible, pretty, elegant, lovely, etc.

The size of the noun comes next. For example: huge, tiny, big, small, medium, long, etc.

The fifth position can be occupied by the age of the noun. For example: new, old, ancient, young, etc.

The shape of the noun is what takes the sixth position. For example: square, cubical, round, circular, spherical, cylindrical, triangular, etc.

Colours of nouns take the next position after shapes in a sentence. For example: grey, purple, deep blue, black, etc.

The origin of the noun comes in the eighth position. For example: Indian, Chinese, Spanish, Dutch, English, Sri Lankan, etc.

The ninth position is taken up by the material of the noun. For example: silk, cotton, jute, wooden, glass, acrylic, etc.

In the last position, just before the noun, you can write the purpose or qualifier of the object. For example: sports (uniform), vending (machine), denim (shirt), jute (saree), painting (brush), etc.

The most important point that you should remember when using multiple adjectives is that the order has to be followed even if all types of adjectives are not used.

For example:

I saw a/ cute/ little/ white cat on the way home.

(Determiner / opinion / size / colour)

Have you seen the / ancient / Portuguese synagogue in Cochin?

(Determiner / Age / Origin)

Order of Adjectives Chart

Have a look at the chart below to have a better understanding.

Examples of Order of Adjectives

Here are some examples to help you comprehend the order of adjectives.

Mazeeka asked all of her bridesmaids to wear soft red silk sarees for her wedding.

My brother goes to college on his new R15 bike.

We got a huge wooden wall cupboard made for our friend's new home.

Dias chose to stay in an old 1 BHK apartment until he finds a better apartment close to his office.

My father bought me a tiny little golden retriever puppy for my last birthday.

Frequently Asked Questions on Order of Adjectives in English

What is meant by the order of adjectives in the English language?

In the English language, the order of adjectives refers to the particular order that has to be followed when using multiple adjectives to describe a subject or object in a sentence.

What is the order of adjectives in a sentence?

In a sentence, the determiner always comes first. This is followed by the quantity, opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material and purpose/qualifier of the noun being described.

Give some examples of how to apply the order of adjectives in sentences.

Here are some examples to show you how the order of adjectives can be applied effectively in sentences.

Mazeeka asked all of her bridesmaids to wear soft red silk sarees for her wedding.

My brother goes to college on his new R15 bike.

We got a huge wooden wall cupboard made for our friend's new home.

Dias chose to stay in an old 1 BHK apartment until he finds a better apartment close to his office.

My father bought me a tiny little golden retriever puppy for my last birthday.

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Order of Adjectives - Rules, Usage and Examples

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Order of Adjectives: Have you heard about the order of adjectives? Wondering what it is? Check out this article to learn how to position multiple adjectives in a sentence according to the order of adjectives.

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Adjectives- Word Order

So what is the correct order of adjectives before a noun?

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Woodward English - Learning English - Teaching English

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What is an adjective?

An adjective is a word that describes something (a noun).
An adjective gives us more information about a person or thing.

Correct order of adjectives

Adjectives sometimes appear after the verb To Be (CARD - LINK TO VIDEO)

The order is To Be + Adjective.

Adjectives sometimes appear before a noun.

The order is Adjective + Noun.

BUT... Sometimes you want to use more than one adjective to describe something (or someone).

What happens if a hat is both brown AND old?

Do we say... an old brown hat OR a brown old hat?

An old brown hat is correct because a certain order for adjectives is expected.

A brown old hat sounds incorrect or not natural.

So what is the correct order of adjectives before a noun?

The order of adjectives before a noun is usually the following:
Opinion - Size - Age - Shape - Color - Origin - Material - Purpose
If we take the first letter of each one, it creates OSASCOMP which is an easy way to remember the order.

Let's look at an example about describing a bag.

It is an ugly small old thin red Italian cotton sleeping bag

It is not common to have so many adjectives before a noun, but I do this so you can see the correct order of adjectives.

Ugly is an opinion, small is a size, old refers to age, thin refers to shape, red is a color, Italian refers to its origin, cotton refers to the material the bag is made of, sleeping is the purpose of the bag.

I will go into more details about each of these categories in a moment. First, let's see two more examples:

A beautiful long white French silk wedding dress.

Large ancient Greek clay flower vases.

Let's study the first one.

Here we have a dress. Dress is a noun, the name of a thing. Let's describe this dress.

What type of dress is it? What is the purpose of this dress?
It is used for weddings so it is...

Let's image the dress is made of silk. It isn't made of plastic or gold, it is made of silk.
Silk is a material so it goes before the purpose. We say it is:

Now, this dress was made in France. France is a noun, its adjective is French.
Its origin is French. Its origin, French, goes before the material, Silk. So we say it is:

Let's add the color of the dress. What color is it? White. Color goes before Origin so we say it is:

What is the shape of this dress? Is it long or short? It is long. The adjective Long goes under the category of shape because shape also covers weight or length. (We will see more about this in a moment) We now say it is:

a long white French silk wedding dress.

Let's add one more adjective. Is the dress beautiful or ugly? Well, you should always say it is beautiful or it will ruin her wedding day.
Beautiful is an opinion and adjectives about opinions go before all the other adjectives. So our final description of the dress is:

a beautiful long white French silk wedding dress.

Now of course we don't normally add so many adjectives before a noun. This example is just to show you the order of adjectives.

The order is NOT fixed

IMPORTANT: The order of adjectives before a noun is NOT 100% FIXED.

This chart is only a guide and is the order that is preferred.

You may see or hear slight variations of the order of adjectives in real life though what appears in the chart is the order that is expected the most.

Now, let's look at each type of adjective in more detail (with examples)...

Types of Adjectives

OPINION

Opinion: These adjectives explain what we think about something. This is our opinion, attitude or observations that we make. Some people may not agree with you because their opinion may be different. These adjectives almost always come before all other adjectives.

Some examples of adjectives referring to opinion are:

delicious, lovely, nice, cool, pretty, comfortable, difficult

For example: She is sitting in a comfortable green armchair.

Comfortable is my opinion or observation, the armchair looks comfortable. The armchair is also green.
Here we have two adjectives. The order is comfortable green armchair because Opinion (comfortable) is before Color (green).

SIZE

Size: Adjectives about size tell us how big or small something is.

Some examples of adjectives referring to size are:

big, small, tall, huge, tiny, large, enormous

For example: a big fat red monster.

Notice how big is first because it refers to size and fat is next because it refers to shape or weight. Then finally we have the color red before the noun.

AGE

Age: Adjectives of age tell us how old someone or something is. How old is it?

Some examples of adjectives referring to age are:

old, young, new, antique, ancient

For example: a scary old house

Scary is my opinion, old refers to the age of the house. Scary is before old because opinion is before age.

SHAPE

Shape: Also weight and length. These adjectives tell us about the shape of something or how long or short it is. It can also refer to the weight of someone or something.

Some examples of adjectives referring to shape are:

round, square, long, fat, heavy, oval, skinny, straight

For example: a small round table.

What is the shape of the table? It is round.
What is the size of the table? It is small.
The order is small round table because size is before shape.

COLOR

Color: The color or approximate color of something.

Some examples of adjectives referring to color are:

green, blue, reddish, purple, pink, orange, red, black, white

(adding ISH at the end makes the color an approximate color, in this case reddish is "approximately red")

Our example: a long yellow dress.

What is the color of the dress? It is yellow.
The dress is also long. Long which is an adjective of shape or more precisely length, is before an adjective of color.

ORIGIN

Origin: Tells us where something is from or was created.

Some examples of adjectives referring to origin are:

American, British, Indian, Turkish, Chilean, Australian, Brazilian

Remember, nationalities and places of origin start with a capital letter.

For example: an ancient Egyptian boy.

His origin is Egyptian. Egyptian needs to be with a capital E which is the big E.
Ancient refers to age so it goes before the adjective of origin.

MATERIAL

Material: What is the thing made of or what is it constructed of?

Some examples of adjectives referring to material are:

gold, wooden, plastic, synthetic, silk, paper, cotton, silver

For example: a beautiful pearl necklace

Pearl is a material. They generally come from oysters.
The necklace is made of what material? It is made of pearls.
The necklace is also beautiful so I put this adjective of opinion before the adjective referring to material.

PURPOSE

Purpose: What is it used for? What is the purpose or use of this thing? Many of these adjectives end in

-ING but not always.

Some examples of adjectives referring to purpose are:

gardening (as in gardening gloves), shopping (as in shopping bag), riding (as in riding boots)

Our example: a messy computer desk

What is the purpose of the desk? It is a place for my computer, it is designed specifically to use with a computer. It is a computer desk. In this case, the desk is also very messy. Messy is an opinion. Some people think my desk is messy. So, the order is opinion before purpose.

So this is the general order of adjectives in English and you can remember them by the mnemonic OSASCOMP.

BUT did you know that we could add some extra categories?

BONUS ADJECTIVE GROUPS

We can add the adjective categories of Number and Condition.

NUMBER

Number: Tells us the amount or quantity of something.

It is not only for normal cardinal numbers like, one, two, three... but also other words that refer to quantity such as many or several.

Our examples of adjectives referring to numbers are:

One, two, three, many, several

For example: three hungry dogs

Number adjectives go before all the other adjectives, including adjectives about opinion.
Hungry is a condition or state so the order is Three hungry dogs.

CONDITION

Condition: Tells us the general condition or state of something

Our examples of adjectives referring to condition or state are:

Clean, wet, rich, hungry, broken, cold, hot, dirty

For example: Two smelly old shoes.

Smelly is a condition or state. Smelly is before old which refers to age. The number two is at the beginning as numbers always are.

Adjectives - Word Order - Summary Chart

Adjectives Word Order - Practice Quiz

Lesson tags: Adjectives, Grammar, Mnemonics, Parts of Speech, Vocabulary, Word Order

Back to: English Course > Descriptions in English

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Adjectives - Word Order Woodward English

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The correct order of adjectives before a noun in English - Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Original, Material, Purpose (OSASCOMP)

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Order of Adjectives

"OSASCOMP METHOD"

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Grammar rules

How to order adjectives in English

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Adjective Order Rules in English | Grammarly Blog

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Why? It's technically correct-it's a big meal, it's Italian food, and your grandma makes it. But it doesn't sound quite right, and that's because the adjective order in that sentence isn't correct.

Most students aren't taught about adjective order in school and instead learn it through listening and reading. In English, the rules regarding adjective order are more specific than they are in other languages; that is why saying adjectives in a specific order sounds "right," and deviating from that order makes a statement sound "wrong," even if it's otherwise grammatically perfect.

Adjective order in English

In English, the proper order for adjectives is known as the Royal Order of Adjectives. The Royal Order of Adjectives is as follows:

Determiner (This isn't a type of adjective, however, determiners-including articles, possessives, and demonstratives-are considered in the Royal Order of Adjectives. They must always come before adjectives and the nouns they modify.)

Opinion
Delicious, heroic, misunderstood, valuable.
Sometimes, this category is divided into two categories: general and specific opinion, with general opinion coming before specific opinion. For example, you might describe a specific tablet as a popular, perfect choice for digital illustrators. The general opinion here is that it's popular, an opinion held by many (and easily verified). The more specific opinion is that it's perfect for digital illustrators-it's personal opinion, but it might not be as widely held as the opinion that it's popular.

Although you might not have ever seen the proper adjective order listed like this, you may have picked up on it and used it without even realizing what you're doing. You could naturally follow this order any time you use more than one adjective to describe a noun, no matter where those adjectives fall within the Royal Order.

Take a look at this chart to see how different noun phrases illustrate the Royal Order:

See how even when you don't use an adjective from every category, you still follow this order?

However, even with a specific adjective order to follow, there are circumstances where you need to change the order to communicate your message clearly. One of these circumstances is when one of the adjectives in your sentence is part of a compound noun . Take a look at this example:

She moved into a brand-new tiny house.

According to The Royal Order of Adjectives, this sentence read "She moved into a tiny brand-new house," right? If you're describing a smaller-than-average new house, yes. But if you're specifically referring to a , the answer is no. There are a lot of ways English can be confusing and in of those cases, there's a hidden logic as to .

Why do adjectives need to be in this order?

It's an unsatisfying answer, but it's the only answer: We don't really know. However, there are a few theories. One is that the closer an adjective sits to its noun, the more vital it is to the noun's description. For example, referring to a house as a "brick house" is more specific than referring to it as an "old house" or a "beautiful house." But this theory doesn't always hold up. To use another example, compare "small dog" to "black dog." Is a black dog really a more specific description than a small dog?

Like other English language quirks, adjective order is one you just have to roll with.

Using commas with adjectives

When you have more than one adjective in a sentence, some need commas and some don't.

Confusing, right?

It's actually not that bad-there's a logic to this one.

When two or more adjectives come from the same category, they need to be separated by commas:

We rode in a comfortable, luxurious limousine.

When your adjectives come from different categories, they aren't separated by commas:

And you never use a comma between the final adjective and the noun it's describing.

You also never put a comma between a noun's determiner and its adjectives. A determiner is a word at the beginning of a phrase that communicates how many and which noun is being described. For example:

Add some adjectives into these phrases and you get:

If you're stuck on whether to use a comma or not, here's an easy trick: if you can add the word "and" between the adjectives reverse the adjectives' order without losing the sentence's clarity, you don't need a comma.

How sentence position affects adjective order

In a , adjectives go before the noun they're describing or modifying. Usually.

Take a look at this sentence:

In this sentence, they follow the verb ("to be," which is in its past tense here: was).

The sentence can easily be rewritten as:

Both are correct. But when your adjectives follow your verb as in the example above, they don't follow the same comma rules as they would when they precede your noun. When the last word in the phrase, clause, or sentence is an adjective, it needs to follow "and":

And when you have three or more adjectives, comma placement depends on whether your style includes the Oxford comma , otherwise known as the serial comma. If you don't use the Oxford comma, each adjective before the second-to-last one needs to be separated by a comma:

If you do use the serial comma, each adjective needs to be separated by a comma:

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"Every Sunday, my grandma makes an Italian big meal," said no one ever. Why? It's technically correct-it's a big meal, it's...

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Order of Adjectives

Dynamic chart about classification and order of adjectives

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When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a particular order ( order of adjectives). Adjectives which describe opinions or attitudes (e.g. amazing) usually come first, before more neutral, factual ones (e.g. red):

She was wearing an amazing red coat.

If we don't want to emphasise any one of the adjectives, the most usual sequence of adjectives is:

Here are some invented examples of longer adjective phrases. A noun phrase which included all these types would be extremely rare.
She was a beautiful (1) , tall (2) , thin (3) , young (5) , black-haired (6) , Scottish (7) woman. What an amazing (1) , little (2) , old (5) , Chinese (7) cup and saucer!
Home was always a warm, welcoming place. Now it is sad, dark and cold.

It was a blue and green cotton shirt.

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Order of Adjectives in English | Adjectives in English | English EFL

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When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a particular order (order of adjectives) . Adjectives which describe opinions or attitudes (e.g. amazing) usually come first, before more neutral, factual ones (e.g. red):

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Order of adjectives

Explaning the rules- grammar situations

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Adjectives: order - English Grammar Today - a reference to written and spoken English grammar and usage - Cambridge Dictionary

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Improving English Skills

Explanation about the Adjectives Word Order

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Adjectives Word Order | Learn English Grammar | Order of Adjectives in English