Order of the Adjectives

When multiple adjectives are used to describe a noun, the adjectives usually appear in a certain
order before the noun they modify. The list below is a guide, however, there may be exceptions.

1. Articles, Quantifiers or Other Noun Markers

a, an, the, his, some, several, Henry's...

2. What We Think
beautiful, honest, tasty, appealing, gorgeous...

3. Size
tall, small, little, big, large, huge...

4. Age
new, old, young...

5. Shape
slim, round, square...

6. Color
White, purple, blue, yellow...

7. Nationality
English, Canadian, American...

8. Religion
Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish

9. Material
cotton, plastic, steel, woolen...

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10. Purpose
dining (table), reading (exercise), scratch (book)...

11. The Noun

pen, summer, teacher, book, child...

Examples:

Look. It is a lovely small wooden house.

Where is your beautiful tall young sister?
I want that expensive Swiss watch.
It is a wonderful small, old, round, wooden coffee table.
There is a pair of nice, white, leather, walking trainers.

When a noun is not used, the position of AND and BUT is important.

Raymond is tall and thin.

New York is big, noisy and crowded.
She is intelligent but lazy.
Weather is nice but polluted.

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