Adjective Order - EnglishSolo

📋 Adjectives Follow a Certain Order

When using multiple adjectives to describe a noun, English follows a specific order. This order sounds natural to native speakers and helps make your English more fluent and accurate.

The brown basket is missing. (size, adjective)

The small brown basket is missing.

Throw away my broken, obsolete cell phone.

💡 Key Point: The order matters! "Small brown basket" sounds natural, but "brown small basket" sounds wrong to English speakers.

🎯 Order of Adjectives

Possessive adjective (your)

Shows ownership or relationship

my, your, his, her, our, their
Size (large)

Physical dimensions

small, big, large, tiny, huge
Age (old)

How old or new something is

old, new, young, ancient, modern
Color (black)

What color it is

red, blue, green, black, white
Participle (broken)

-ing or -ed adjectives

broken, running, painted, sleeping
Proper adjective (English)

From proper nouns (places, people)

American, Chinese, Victorian
Noun used as an adjective (house)

A noun describing another noun

kitchen table, car door, computer screen
Noun (store) - this is the word that all the adjectives describe

The main noun being described

The thing everything else describes

Comma use

Use a comma between adjectives that are similar in importance.

You can also use "and" instead of the comma for these adjectives.

For example: He's a short old fat man. He's a short and fat man. ("Short" and "fat" are both describing the man's appearance, so they have equal importance.)

🎯 Interactive Practice

Put the adjectives in the correct order! Click words from the word bank to build your sentence.

🏆 Order of Adjective Quiz

The first word is a noun, followed by several adjectives which describe it. Put the adjectives in the correct order—remember to include commas and capital letters!

Make your own sentence using several different categories of adjectives.