English Adjective Order Made Easy

Big, beautiful, expensive, Italian, strong, small, kind – all these are English adjectives. 

What’s the function of these words? How do we use them? Where do we place them in a sentence? Is there an order for adjectives in English? Should we separate them with commas?

So many questions! 

In this post, you'll discover everything you've ever wanted to know about English adjective order and more.

What Are Adjectives?

An adjective is a word that describes, modifies, and gives us more information about a noun or pronoun. For example, in the following sentences taken from my book Intermediate Short Stories in English, all the words in bold are adjectives: 

• The smoke and heat were thick.
• He was at least six inches taller than me.
• His Swiss company owned the hospital.
• I only got a quick look before Mrs Flickner caught me.
• The second room was called the Bubble Room.

Adjectives can come in different positions in a sentence.

English Adjective Order: Two Main Positions 

Most adjectives usually come in two main places in a sentence:

Position 1: Attributive position before a noun

Adjectives usually come before nouns. Here are some examples from my book Intermediate Short Stories in English:

• Several customers were trying to get the helpless bartender’s attention. 
• Marty was an older man who owned the bar across the street named The Windy Plains Saloon.
• She stopped only inches away from the huge bouncer.

Position 2: Predicative position after a verb

Adjectives can also come after verbs like “be,” “look,” “sound,” “seem,” “get,” and “become.” 

Here are some examples:

• Some people become rich while some others become poor.
• He never got rich and he never got famous.
• I am looking forward to trying the cheesecake – it sounds amazing.
• What had seemed impossible suddenly seemed possible.
• His humour and storytelling skills are incredible.

Some adjectives, however, are almost always used before nouns, and never after verbs. Three examples:

1. Old (meaning “known for a long time”)

• He’s an old friend of mine. (This is different than “My friend is old”)

2. Little 

• She lives in a little house. (But: Her house is small)

3. Mere (used when you want to emphasize how small, unimportant, etc. somebody/something is)

• He’s a mere child (We don’t say, “The child is mere.”)

Similarly, some adjectives are always used after verbs and never before nouns. “Asleep,” “afraid,” and “alive” are three of these. 

So we say:

• “The baby is asleep”. We don’t say “the asleep baby” but “the sleeping baby.” 
• “The animal is alive.” We don’t say “the alive animal” but “the live animal.” 
• “He’s too afraid of being hospitalized.” We don’t say “the afraid man” but “the frightened man”.

English Adjective Order: Some Other Positions 

Adjectives can also come in other positions in a sentence. Here are some of the most common:

1. Before personal pronouns:

• Poor you!
• Lucky you!
• Smart you!

2. After a verb + object:

• I’ll get the food ready.
• They never make me happy!
• We’ve decided to paint the walls green.

3. Adjectives ending in “-able” and “-ible” can come after nouns:

• We have both single and double rooms available.
• Where do we go if there's no real solution possible?
• Is there a discount applicable?

4. When we talk about measurements, adjectives follow the nouns:

• The building is one hundred meters high.
• The river is seven feet deep.
•  I am 37 years old.

5. Adjectives usually follow words like “anything,” “something,” “no one,” etc.:

• Oh, is there anything better beyond this?
• There is usually something interesting going on.
• The apps and social networking features are nothing special.

6. When we talk about groups of people who share a particular social or physical condition, we use adjectives without nouns. So we can say:

• The poor
• The rich
• The blind
• The deaf
• The young

The same is true for some nationality adjectives ending in “-sh” or “-ch”:

• The French
• The Irish
• The British
• The Spanish

There are other cases when we don’t use a noun before or after an adjective. 

These include:

• When we talk about abstract concepts
  • The unknown
  • The unreal
  • The impossible

• When talking about choice and it’s clear what noun the adjective refers to:
  • Should I take the first road on the left or the second?
  • Would you like the pink shirt or the blue?

• In superlatives:
  • I don’t want to see a good movie. I want to see the best!

But what if we have several adjectives describing the same noun? Is there a particular English adjective order we need to follow? I mean, which of the following sentences is acceptable? 

• A big blue beautiful car.
• A blue beautiful big car.
• A big beautiful blue car is mine.
• A beautiful big blue car.

The answer is “A beautiful big blue car.” Why? Let’s find out.

English Adjective Order Before Nouns

Adjectives can describe different qualities. Some of these are:

• Size (fat, big, small, etc.)
• Age (old, new, ancient, etc.)
• Shape (round, square, rectangular, etc.)
• Colour (blue, white, dark, etc.)
• Origin (Italian, French, Spanish, etc.)
• Material (wooden, wollen, golden, etc.)

Adjectives can also classify, which means they indicate the type of things that we’re talking about. For example:

• An educational program (not a political one).
• A medical examination
• A financial advisor
• A legal document
• A scientific study
• A commercial area
• An agricultural method
• A residential neighbourhood
• A digital platform

And so on.

As a general rule, the description comes before the classification. So we say “a charming Victorian house” not “a Victorian charming house”.  “Charming” describes a quality while “Victorian” classify the house.

Some other examples:

• A reliable electric vehicle 
• A spicy Thai curry 
• A soft leather Italian jacket 
• A bright educational toy
• A resistant outdoor tent
• An expensive corporate jet 
• A cold medicinal syrup 
• A rich cultural heritage 

Another general rule of English adjective order says that we first use adjectives to express our own opinion about something or someone followed by adjectives that describe qualities. 

So, for example, we say “a beautiful old house” not “an old beautiful house.” Beautiful is an opinion, right? Old, on the other hand, is more of an objective quality.

Here are some other examples:

• A lovely comfortable chair
• An exciting new movie
• A gorgeous French painting
• An adorable little puppy
• A delicious homemade cake
• A fascinating historical novel
• A terrible cold winter

Things get tricky when we have multiple descriptive adjectives. What if, for example, we want to use green (colour), large (size), Italian (origin) to describe a pair of trousers? 

Generally, this is the order that descriptive adjectives follow:

size – age – shape – colour – origin – material – noun

So we say, “A large green Italian pair of trousers.”

Some other examples for you:

• A small ancient round silver Chinese vase
• A large old rectangular black American leather sofa
• A tiny young oval white French ceramic bowl
• A huge old square grey British steel container
• A tall ancient cylindrical brown German wooden clock
• A compact new triangular blue Canadian plastic toy
• A wide old flat dark Spanish stone table

But let’s be honest, how often do we use so many adjectives to describe a noun? Almost never. 

And most importantly, how easy is it to remember this English order of adjectives when you speak or write in English? Not easy at all.

Some suggest that a more useful rule would be this: general quality before particular quality. For example, in “a large green Italian pair of trousers” “large” is a more general quality than Italian. But which is more specific between “large” and “green”?

Tricky, isn’t it?

Here’s my advice: unless you’re a novelist, you’ll hardly ever need to use five adjectives in a row to describe something. Notice the order, learn it, and, if it helps you, do some mechanical exercises to memorise it.

But don’t stress over it. And when in doubt, come back to this grammar guide to check it.

Let’s now have a look at when to use “and” and commas (,) to separate adjectives.

“And” And Commas To Separate English Adjectives

We use a comma between adjectives when the adjectives are coordinate adjectives. The word “coordinate” comes from Latin and means “of the same order, belonging to the same rank or degree”. 

These are indeed adjectives that belong to the same “family” and describe a noun in the same way.

For example, “kind,” “generous,” and “helpful” are three coordinate adjectives to describe a person as they equally describe the same features of that person: characters and personality. In this case, we can either use a comma or the word “and” to separate the adjectives. 

So we can write:

• He’s generous, kind and helpful.
• He’s kind, generous and helpful.
• I met a kind, generous woman.
• I met a generous, kind woman.
• I met a generous and kind woman.
• I met a kind and generous woman.

All these are correct. 

Did you notice how the order of adjectives is flexible? 

Cumulative adjectives, however, are different. The word “cumulative” comes from Latin and means “increasing by successive additions.”

So cumulative adjectives have an increasing level of importance as they progressively add new information to the noun. These adjectives don’t describe the noun in an equal way. 

In “a huge old square grey British steel container” each adjective gives new and precise information about the noun. Each one describes something different.

In this case, we don’t need a comma and the order is the one we studied before (size – age – shape – colour – origin – material – noun).

How do you know if you should use commas or not? Here’s a simple way to determine that: use the “and” test.

If you use “and” between the adjectives and the sentence still makes sense, the adjectives are likely to be coordinating adjectives and you should separate them with a comma. For example, “It was a long, stressful day” works as “It was a long and stressful day.” 

But “He has an expensive green car” can't become “He has an expensive and green car.” That sounds weird. And so does “He has a green expensive car.” So, in this case, the adjectives are cumulative and you shouldn't separate them with a comma.

Master English Adjective Order With Stories, Not Rules

You may now wonder how you'll learn all these rules for adjective order in English. You may also be thinking about how you'll be able to remember all these guidelines when you’re in the middle of a conversation.

Good news: you don’t have to do any of this. And here’s a secret: I’ve never studied the order of adjectives in English. It just comes naturally to me!

Why? Because I’ve been exposed to a lot of English since the day I was born! 

So the best thing you can do right now is to read and listen. Read books for English learners, consume stories, listen to podcasts in English. Do it as often as you can as this will help you internalise the language and its rules.

This will also help you reach a point where your ears will notice that something isn’t quite right when someone says “a green big car.” 

Expose your brain to a lot of stories in English and with time you’ll become a fluent, confident, articulate, and proficient speaker of English!