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Adjective Order Guide for Descriptions

Adjectives are used to describe nouns and should follow a particular order when used together before a noun. The general order is: quantity, quality/opinion, size, age, shape, condition, color, origin, material, and purpose. Following this order helps avoid ambiguity and emphasizes different descriptions. For example, "one irritating small old thin empty grey British plastic sleeping teacher" follows the proper order of adjectives.

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46 views2 pages

Adjective Order Guide for Descriptions

Adjectives are used to describe nouns and should follow a particular order when used together before a noun. The general order is: quantity, quality/opinion, size, age, shape, condition, color, origin, material, and purpose. Following this order helps avoid ambiguity and emphasizes different descriptions. For example, "one irritating small old thin empty grey British plastic sleeping teacher" follows the proper order of adjectives.

Uploaded by

nazkiyah
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Adjective Order

Adjectives are used to describe what things look like, such as size, age, shape,
colour, material, or describe more abstract things like opinion, origin and
purpose. We can use adjectives together to give a detailed description of
something. Adjectives that express opinions usually come before all others,
but it can sometimes depend on what exactly you want to emphasize

When several adjectives are used before a noun, they must be used in a
particular order. For example:

British old white car is wrong, old white British car is correct.

It is common to have two adjectives before a noun; not so common to have


three adjectives, and rare to have more. To use a long example, which is really
an exaggeration (誇張), in what order should these adjectives be used to
describe a car:

British, three red, old, ugly, small, = three ugly small old red British cars.

This is the general adjective order:

quantity - one, two, many, few, a lot of


quality/opinion - pointless, useful, useless, irritating, silly, beautiful,
horrible, difficult
size - big, small, medium-sized, tiny, huge, long,
age - old, young, ancient, new, modern, enormous
shape - square, round, flat, twisted, irregular, regular, thin
condition - broken, damaged, burnt, empty, full
color - blue, pink, reddish, grey
origin - Japanese, British, lunar, Martian, eastern, western
material - wooden, metal, cotton, paper, plastic,
purpose (describes what something is used for, and often ends with “-ing”)
- sleeping (as in “sleeping bag”), racing (as in “racing car”)

E.g. One irritating small old thin empty grey British plastic sleeping teacher.

To avoid using a long list of adjectives, we can put some before and some
after the noun. E.g. The small red wooden doll is old and broken.

This adjective order can be changed sometimes, for example:


The witch had a long ugly twisted nose. Emphasizing that her nose is long.
The witch had an ugly long twisted nose. Emphasizing that her nose is ugly.

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