When there are two or more adjectives that are from the same group, the word and is placed between the two adjectives:

When there are three or more adjectives from the same adjective group, place a comma between each of the coordinate adjectives:

Determiner | Quantity or number | Quality or opinion | Size | Age | Shape | Color | Proper adjective | Purpose or qualifier | NounA |  | beautiful |  | old |  |  | Italian | sports | car
The | three | beautiful | little |  |  | gold |  |  | plates
An |  | amazing |  |  | heart-shaped | red and white |  |  | sofa
More examples:

Order of adjectives exercises

1. Choose the best answer for each sentence.

Answers: A – large and white B – large white

2. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: C

3. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: A

4. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: B

5. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: A

6. For each of the following sentences, choose the correct order of adjectives to fill in the blank.

Answers: A – little blue, green and white B – interesting new, old and antique C – incredible, huge, brand-new Italian

7. For each of the following sentences, choose the correct order of adjectives to fill in the blank.

Answers: A – nice new red rain B – three nice big new polka-dotted squirting C – little old round red

8. For each of the following sentences, choose the correct order of adjectives to fill in the blank:

Answers: A – cute little eight-week-old golden retriever B – big baggy yellow polo C – little silver Italian cuckoo

9. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: A

10. Which sentence uses the correct order of adjectives?

Answer: B

 | beautiful brown eyes.
| a dirty old jumper.
| a fast Nigerian athlete.
| a horrible poisonous snake.
| a long cold winter.
| a clever old man.
| two small plastic bottles.
| a handsome young boy.
| a big round table.
| a strange dark house.

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:

Quantity | Opinion | Size | Age | Shape | Color | Origin/Material | Qualifier | Noun
one | beautiful |  | old |  |  | brick |  | house
|  | small |  |  | black |  |  | dog
|  |  | new |  |  | wool | button-down | sweater

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:

According to The Royal Order of Adjectives, this sentence should 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 tiny house, the answer is no. There are a lot of ways English can be confusing and in some of those cases, there’s a hidden logic as to why. 

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. 

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:

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 and reverse the adjectives’ order without losing the sentence’s clarity, you don’t need a comma.

In a sentence, 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: