The proper order of adjectives is listed below along with some examples for each category.

1. Determiners a, an, the, my, your, several, etc.

2. Observations lovely, boring, stimulating, etc.
3. Size tiny, small, huge, etc.
4. Shape round, square, rectangular, etc.
5. Age old, new, ancient, etc.
6. Colour red, blue, green, etc.
7. Origin British, American, Mexican, etc.
8. Material gold, copper, silk, etc.
9. Qualifier limiters for compound nouns.

The burnt, big, shapeless, old, black, American, paper, box of chocolates
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Here are some examples for you to number:

1. The interesting, small, rectangular, blue car is parked in my space.
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

2. I bought a beautiful, long, red, Italian, silk tie.
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

3. My father lives in a lovely, gigantic, ancient, brick house.
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

4. I have an annoying, small, circular, American, tin, alarm clock that wakes me up.
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Here are some examples for you to rearrange:

1. Lets order [rectangular/ huge/ pepperoni/ delicious/ a ] pizza.
____________________________________________________________________________

2. We all love [ British/ smart/ petite/ our ] teacher.
____________________________________________________________________________

3. They all received [small/ several/ gold/ ancient/ dazzling ] coins.
____________________________________________________________________________

4. She owns [ brown/ large/ stunning/ a/ old ] dog named Boris.
____________________________________________________________________________



Adapted from
By Thomas Williams, teacher at EC San Diego English school
http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/adjective-word-order
Answer key

Here are some examples for you to number:


1. The interesting, small, rectangular, blue car is parked in my space.
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 6 ]

2. I bought a beautiful, long, red, Italian, silk tie.
[1 ] [2 ] [ 4 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

3. My father lives in a lovely, gigantic, ancient, brick house.
[1] [2 ] [ 3] [ 5 ] [ 8 ]

4. I have an annoying, small, circular, American, tin, alarm clock that wakes me up.
[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

Here are some examples for you to rearrange:

1. Lets order [rectangular/ huge/ pepperoni/ delicious/ a ] pizza.
Lets order a delicious, huge, rectangular, pepperoni pizza.

2. We all love [ British/ smart/ petite/ our ] teacher.
We all love our smart, petite, British teacher.

3. They all received [small/ several/ gold/ ancient/ dazzling ] coins.
They all received several dazzling, small, ancient, gold coins.

4. She owns [ brown/ large/ stunning/ a/ old ] dog named Boris.
She owns a stunning, large, brown dog named Boris.


[Dont forget the commas. There is no comma after a determiner or after the last adjective.]