Adjective Order: Adjective Before Noun

1 of 2

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives-order_1.htm

Adjective Before Noun (EnglishClub.com)

We often use more than one adjective before the noun:
I like big black dogs.
She was wearing a beautiful long red dress.
What is the correct order for two or more adjectives?
1. First of all, the general order is:
opinion, fact
"Opinion" is what you think about something. "Fact" is what is definitely true about something.
a lovely new dress (not a new lovely dress)
a boring French film (not a French boring film)
2. The "normal" order for fact adjectives is
other / size, shape, age, colour / origin / material / purpose
a small 18th-century French coffee table
a rectangular black wooden box
3. Determiners usually come first, even though they are fact adjectives:
articles (a, the)
possessives (my, your...)
demonstratives (this, that...)
quantifiers (some, any, few, many...)
numbers (one, two, three)
Note that when we want to use two colour adjectives, we join them with "and":
Many newspapers are black and white.
She was wearing a long, blue and yellow dress.
Here are some examples of adjective order:
adjectives
determiner

head noun
opinion adjectives

fact adjectives
other

two

ugly

size, shape, age, colour

material

black
well-known

origin

purpose*
guard

Chinese
small, 18th-century

dogs
artist

French

your

fabulous

new

lovely

pink and green

Thai

silk

some

black

Spanish

leather

big black and white

coffee

table

sports

car
dress

riding

boots
dog

10/5/2013 3:24 AM

Adjective Order: Adjective Before Noun

2 of 2

this

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives-order_1.htm

cheap

an

old

my

new

wonderful

15th-century

Arabic

plastic

rain

coat

wooden

fishing

boat

tennis

racket
poem

*often a noun used as an adjective

Not all grammarians agree about the exact order of adjectives, and the detailed rules are complicated. The rules on this page are for
the normal, "natural" order of adjectives. These rules are not rigid, and you may sometimes wish to change the order for emphasis.
Consider the following conversations:
Conversation 1
A "I want to buy a round table."
B "Do you want a new round table or an old round table?"
Conversation 2
A "I want to buy an old table".
B "Do you want a round old table or a square old table?"
Adjective After Verb

10/5/2013 3:24 AM