When you use several adjectives before a noun, they follow a fixed order: opinion → size → age → shape → colour → origin → material → purpose → noun: a lovely little old car, a big black leather bag. In practice, two or three adjectives are plenty.
She bought a beautiful old red car.
Opinions come first; facts that are closer to what the thing is come closer to the noun.
| 1. Opinion | lovely, nice, ugly, beautiful |
|---|---|
| 2. Size | big, small, tall, long |
| 3. Age | old, new, young, modern |
| 4. Shape | round, square, flat |
| 5. Colour | red, blue, dark |
| 6. Origin | Italian, Japanese, Romanian |
| 7. Material | wooden, leather, cotton |
| 8. Purpose | running (shoes), sleeping (bag) |
It's a lovely big garden.
What you think comes before what anyone can measure.
a small old black dog
Measurable facts follow the order size, age, then colour.
a Japanese wooden box
Where it's from, then what it's made of.
new running shoes
The purpose is almost part of the noun.
Common expressions worth learning as they are.
She has _____ eyes.
The sentence skeleton, and every word-order lesson.
Paste an email or an essay. Clarigram marks the mistakes you actually make, shows the rule behind each one as a picture, and builds your practice from them.
Not between adjectives from different groups: a big red car. Use a comma (or and) between two adjectives from the same group: a long, boring meeting.
Native speakers follow it without thinking, so breaking it sounds odd. But more than three adjectives in a row is unusual anyway.