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Order of Adjectives
6. Order of Adjectives

The correct order for a row of adjectives modifying a noun

It happens often that two adjectives or even several adjectives are used to describe a noun. With more than one adjective in a
row, there is a specific order for this group of adjectives to follow.

The following shows categories of adjectives in the correct order in which they are used to describe a noun.

Determiner – We normally begin a sentence of this nature with a determiner. The determiner can be an article (a, an, the), a
demonstrative adjective (this, that, these, those), a possessive adjective (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) or an amount.
Observation/Opinion – beautiful, best, dirty, funny, sweet, ugly, worthless
Size – big, large, small, huge, short, thick, 2-foot-long
Age* -- aged, elderly, new, 6-year-old, senior, young, youthful
Shape – circular, flat, oblong, oval, round, square, triangular
Colour – blue, emerald, green, orange, red, violet, yellow
Origin/Location – African, British, Chinese, Hawaiian, Japanese, Roman, Surinamese (It tells us where the noun comes from)
Material – bronze, gold, plastic, silk, silver, steel, wooden
Qualifier/purpose – It can be a noun (garden tool) or verb (used car) acting as an adjective.
(*Sometimes, age comes after shape.)

Coordinate adjective
Coordinate adjectives are adjectives that are equally important in describing a noun, without one of them outranking the
others, and they are separated by a comma or commas.

To know if the adjectives used in a sentence are coordinate so that a comma is used between them, reverse the order of the
adjectives or use the word and to separate the two adjectives. If they make sense, they are coordinate and a comma is
required.

Example:
He is a highly qualified, experienced doctor.
He is an experienced, highly qualified doctor.
He is a highly qualified and experienced doctor.

(Both make sense, which means both adjectives are of equal importance (coordinate) and a comma is used.)

Example:
Three or more coordinate adjectives
When there are three or more coordinate adjectives, separate the adjectives with commas and the last two adjectives with
the word and.
She bought him a yellow, brown and red cap.
There were round, square and oval birthday cakes on sale at the bakery.

No commas are required to separate non-coordinate adjectives that belong to different categories of adjectives. The
adjectives are shown in bold.
This beautiful large 10-year-old red-coloured Russian-designed wooden summer house is for sale.
(Summer is a noun ac ng as an adjec ve modifying the noun house.)
She inherited that light yellowish-brown wicker cat basket from her grandmother, who used to keep a playful small
black cat.
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8/27/2018(Wicker and cat are nouns acting as modifying adjectives.)
6. Order of Adjectives

Example:
Coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives
Coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives may exist in a single sentence.
The items he bought included a reasonably-priced, imported glass wine jug.
(Reasonably-priced and imported are coordinate adjectives as they can exchange places, and the word and can
replace the comma. The other two adjectives glass and wine are non-coordinate because and cannot be placed
between them or between imported and glass.)
The funny, clumsy clown soon appeared, dressed in clothes with red and yellow polka dots

Examples:
If adjectives in a sentence come after the verb be (is, are, etc.), the qualifier adjective (an adjective that qualifies the
meaning of a noun and is accepted as part of the noun) will accompany the noun at the beginning of the sentence. The
qualifier adjective does not need to be an adjective: summer, for example, in the following example sentences. More
examples: garden gate, sandwich box, kitchen table, fish farm (all the words in bold are not adjectives; they are nouns
but act as adjectives).
Correct: This summer house is beautiful, small, 10-year-old, red-coloured, Russian designed and wooden.
Incorrect: This house is beautiful, small, 10-year-old, red-coloured, Russian designed and wooden and summer.

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