Adjective Order

Adjectives cannot be written in any order. There are rules, so you should use the following order:

1. Determiner or article

* Determiners e.g. this, that, these, those, my, mine, your, yours, him, his, her, hers, they, their, Sam's ; or
* Articles - a, an, the

2. Opinion adjective

e.g. polite, fun, cute, difficult, hard-working

3. Size, including adjectives, comparatives and superlatives

* height; e.g. tall, short, high, low; taller, tallest
* width; e.g. wide, narrow, thin, slim; wider, widest
* length; e.g. long, short; longer, longest
* volume; e.g. fat, huge; fatter, fattest

4. Shape

e.g. circular, oval, triangular, square, 5-sided, hexagonal, irregular

5. Age

e.g. new, young, adolescent, teenage, middle-aged, old, ancient

6. Colour

e.g. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, grey, black, black and white, light blue, dark red, pale blue, reddish brown, off-white, bright green, warm yellow

7. Nationality

e.g. Hong Kong, Chinese, English, American, Canadian, Japanese

8. Religion

e.g. Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Moslem, pagan, atheist

9. Material

e.g. wood, plastic, metal, ceramic, paper, silk

10. Noun used as an adjective

e.g. campus (as in 'campus activities')

11. The noun that the adjectives are describing.