The other day, one of our coworkers sent me an interesting article about adjective order, titled “Why the green great dragon can’t exist.” I know I’ve talked about adjective order before, but it is still one of those things a lot of people never think about, because most native English speakers just “hear” the correct order. The article talks a little bit about this, too. For those of you interested in the standard order of adjectives, I have compiled an ordered list below, along with some examples.
Note: Most professional writers do not string so many adjectives together; they rely on other methods of description to communicate an image to the reader.
Order of Adjectives
| Determiner | Opinion | Physical Description | Origin | Material | Qualifier/ Purpose |
Noun | |||
| Size | Shape | Age | Color | ||||||
| a | lovely | little | round | blue | lapis lazuli | marble | |||
| an | expensive | antique | Swiss | silver | diving | watch | |||
| his | big | fat | older | brother | |||||
| our | nice | large | Spanish | cork | tree | ||||
| several | delicious | huge | fresh | New York | egg | bagels | |||
| that | handsome | thirty-something | auburn | Scottish | kilt-wearer | ||||
| three | kind | young | tan | Italian | dessert | chefs | |||
From Outlander
Kara Church
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