SY 2023

GRADE 8
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

ADJECTIVAL ORDER

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

3 physical quality thin, rough, untidy

4 shape round, square, rectangular

5 age young, old, youthful

6 colour blue, red, pink

order relating to examples

7 origin Dutch, Japanese, Turkish

8 material metal, wood, plastic

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

10 purpose cleaning, hammering, cooking

Look at the example below:

The beautiful, large, rectangular, ancient, pink, Indian, silk rug.

Usually, however, we do not use more than three adjectives in a row before a noun,
so the main thing to remember is that size, shape and age go before colour, and that
colour goes before where the thing comes from and what it is made of.

Remember to put a comma between items in a list, i.e. between each of the
adjectives, but not between the last one and the noun.

Examples:
It was made of a strange, green, metallic material.
It’s a long, narrow, plastic brush.
Panettone is a round, Italian, bread-like Christmas cake.