Adjective order

Adjective Order
The basic types of adjectives
Opinion
An opinion adjective explains what you think about something (other people may not agree with you). Examples: silly, beautiful, horrible, difficult

Size
A size adjective, of course, tells you how big or small something is. Examples: large, tiny, enormous, little

Age
An age adjective tells you how young or old something or someone is. Examples: ancient, new, young, old

Shape
A shape adjective describes the shape of something. Examples: square, round, flat, rectangular

Colour
A colour adjective, of course, describes the colour of something. Examples: blue, pink, reddish, grey

Origin
An origin adjective describes where something comes from. Examples: French, lunar, American, eastern, Greek

Material
A material adjective describes what something is made from. Examples: wooden, metal, cotton, paper

Purpose
A purpose adjective describes what something is used for. These adjectives often end with "-ing". Examples: sleeping (as in "sleeping bag"), roasting (as in "roasting tin")

Some examples of adjective order

Opinion
Size
Age
Shape
Colour
Origin
Material
Purpose


a
silly

young


English


man

a

huge

round


metal

bowl

a

small


red


sleeping
bag




Exercise 1: Choose the best answer:
1. Which is the correct order?
a small Canadian thin lady
a Canadian small thin lady
a small thin Canadian lady
a thin small Canadian lady 2. Which is the correct order?
a carving steel new knife
a new steel carving knife
a steel new carving knife
a new carving steel knife 3. Which is the correct order?
a beautiful blue sailing boat
a blue beautiful sailing boat
a sailing beautiful blue boat
a blue sailing beautiful boat 4. Which is the correct order?
an old wooden square table
a square wooden old table
an old square wooden table
a wooden old square table 5. Which is the correct order?
an new French exciting band
a French new exciting band
an exciting French new band
an exciting new French band 6. Which is the correct order?
a red big plastic hat
a big red plastic hat
a plastic big red hat
a bit plastic red hat 7. Which is the correct order?
a small Japanese serving bowl
a Japanese small serving bowl
a small serving Japanese bowl
a serving small Japanese bowl 8. Which is the correct order?
a cotton dirty old tie
a dirty cotton old tie
an old cotton dirty tie
a dirty old cotton tie
Exercise 2: Give the correct order:
round small reading lamp
2. German old yellow car
3. wooden huge sailing ship
4. physics boring old teacher
5. slim Canadian handsome snowboarder
6. sugar blue round bowl
Exercise 3: Choose the best answer:
He was wearing a ________ shirt.
dirty old flannel
flannel old dirty
old dirty flannel2. Pass me the ________ cups.
plastic big blue
big blue plastic
big plastic blue 3. All the girls fell in love with the ________ teacher.
handsome new American
American new handsome
new handsome American  4. I used to drive ________ car.
a blue old German
an old German blue
an old blue German5. He recently married a ________ woman.
young beautiful Greek
beautiful young Greek
beautiful Greek young  
6. This is a ________ movie.
new Italian wonderful
wonderful Italian new
wonderful new Italian7. She is a ________ supermodel.
beautiful slim Brazilian
Brazilian beautiful slim
slim Brazilian beautiful8. It`s in the ________ container.
large blue metal
blue large metal
blue metal large9. He sat behind a ________ desk.
big wooden brown
big brown wooden
wooden big brown10. She gave him a ________ vase.
small Egyptian black
black Egyptian small
small black Egyptian