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Grammar > Adjectives and adverbs > Adjectives > Adjectives: order

from English Grammar Today

Order of adjectives
When more than one adjective comes before a noun, the adjectives are normally in a particular order. 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.

Not: … red amazing coat

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

order relating to examples

1 opinion unusual, lovely, beautiful

2 size big, small, tall

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order relating to examples  
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3 physical quality thin, rough, untidy

4 shape round, square, rectangular

5 age young, old, youthful

6 colour blue, red, pink

7 origin Dutch, Japanese, Turkish

8 material metal, wood, plastic

9 type general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped

10 purpose cleaning, hammering, cooking

1 6 8
It was made of a strange, green, metallic material.
2 4 8
It’s a long, narrow, plastic brush.
4 7 9
Panettone is a round, Italian, bread-like Christmas cake.

Here are some invented examples of longer adjective phrases. A noun phrase which included all these types would be extremely rare.
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1 2 3 5 6 7
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She Grammar
was a beautiful, tall, thin, young, black-haired, Scottish woman.  
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1 2 5 7
What an amazing, little, old, Chinese cup and saucer!

Adjectives joined by and

When more than one adjective occurs after a verb such as be (a linking verb), the second last adjective is normally connected to the last
adjective by and:

Home was always a warm, welcoming place. Now it is sad, dark and cold.

And is less common when more than one adjective comes before the noun (e.g. a warm, welcoming place). However, we can use and when
there are two or more adjectives of the same type, or when the adjectives refer to different parts of the same thing:

It was a blue and green cotton shirt.

See also:

Adjectives

Popular searches
01 Future: will and shall

02 As … as

03 Prefixes

04 Especially or specially?

05 As well (as)
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06 If or whether?
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07 Discourse markers (so, right, okay)

08 Open or opened?

09 Adverbs and adverb phrases: position

10 At, on and in (place)

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