Take a look at these three sentences. Which one is most likely in English?1. I have just bought a beautiful old hand-painted Japanese print.
2. I have just bought a beautiful Japanese old hand-painted print.
3. I have just bought a beautiful Japanese hand-painted old print.
The words in red are all adjectives and describe the print. But the
order of adjectives differs in each sentence.
Sentence one shows the most likely order in English.
Look at the following sentences. Notice the order in which the adjectives (in red) are placed:
The first three Canadian competitors to complete the race all broke the national record.
The tall young English man approached the beautiful rich American woman.
There was a small round black spot on the ancient carved wooden screen.
We had lunch in a charming old 18th-century Spanish restaurant.
I just bought a new red bicycle pump.
Adjectives are fun to learn, and it's always good to have a big personal store of them available for use. Adjectives make your language both more precise and more individual. But what order should they go in?
The rules for adjective order are not fixed (no surprise!) as individual choices are always possible; but there are some combinations which almost never occur.
Order of Adjectives
You might find this list useful in deciding the order of adjectives:
1. Ordinal number (first, second, last)
2. Cardinal number (one, two, three)
3. General judgement or first impression (good, beautiful, lovely, nice, new)
4. General mental judgement or opinion (charming, intelligent, fascinating, rich)
5. Measurement (tall, small, big)
6. Age or temperature (old, young, ancient, hot, cold)
7. Shape (round, square)
8. Colour (red, green)
9. Verb participle to describe a state (carved, boiling)
10. Material (wooden, plastic)
11. Origin or nationality (English, American, Spanish)
12. Noun used as an adjective (bicycle, 18th-century)
So in the first example above the most likely order is:
I have just bought a beautiful (3) old (6) hand-painted (9) Japanese (11) print.
Sometimes, of course, the order depends on whether you wish to emphasise a particular thing. Compare, for example:
A beautiful tall Egyptian woman entered the room.
A tall beautiful Egyptian woman entered the room.
Each sentence emphasises a different general judgment about the woman through the order of adjectives. However, the position of 'Egyptian' does not change.
Also, we might change the order to make it clear that we are talking about a certain type of thing. For example, 'a French white wine' instead of 'a white French wine'.
Test yourself
Put the adjectives in brackets in the best order using the guidelines above.
1. She had a dress on. (green, summer, bright, cotton)
2. I enjoy food. (Indian, spicy, hot)
3. She lives in a house. (country, old, lovely, English-style)
4. Have you done the questions yet? (four, first)
5. He's bought a car. (new, sports, German, superb, yellow)
6. The game is played with a set of balls. (metal, grooved, round, three)
Note: commas are not needed in adjective lists unless you wish to separate the items for emphasis or clarity, or when they come after the noun:
She was a little, intelligent cat.
The wallet I lost was old, brown and leather-bound.
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