What Is the Order of Adjectives in a Sentence? An Infographic, Examples, and More…

The topic of the order of adjectives can be confusing because many resources offer slightly different orders, sometimes with more or fewer categories. While we don’t claim we have the best order, we will try to present it in an interactive and learner-friendly way to make sure it helps.

To dive deeper into the topic of the types & order of adjectives in English, read the second part of this article called “The Order of Adjectives in English: Part 2 – The Big Bad Wolf or How Order Changes”. (Opens in a new tab.)

1. General information

Adjectives are words that modify (describe) other words. When that happens, we learn more about the other words in terms of their size, shape, color, or some other quality. Some words that adjectives can describe include nouns¹, pronouns², or gerunds³.

• beautiful flowers¹
• оh, poor me²
• dirty dancing³

Adjectives can be placed either:

1. before the word they modify
2. after it, following the linking verb to be¹
3. after a sense verb² that acts as a linking verb

• This is an interesting story.
• This story is¹ interesting.
• This story sounds² interesting.

*Linking verbs are not action verbs. They are sometimes called state-of-being verbs, and they tell us what the subject is by identifying^(noun) and describing^(adjective) it, rather than what it does^{(action verb)}.

Tom is a cat. When he is scared, he jumps and hisses.

**The most common linking verb is the verb to be in all its forms (is, was, has been, will be, etc.). Other verbs that can act as linking verbs are the sense verbs (to look, to seem, to taste, to feel, to smell, and to sound). There are other linking verbs, for example, to become, to turn, etc.

• Sorry, I am late.
• That seems strange.

• This is an interesting story.
• This story is/ seems strange.

Let’s not forget that not all languages position adjectives the same way. Depending on the native language of your learners, this may be challenging.

For example, in Spanish, most adjectives usually go after the noun they describe, or if they move before the noun, the meaning may change.

• English – a tall man
• Spanish – un hombre alto

Also, some languages have grammatical gender, which means there needs to be a gender agreement between the adjective and the word it describes, which, in turn, means that the adjective changes.

• English – a small boy; a small girl
• Finnish – pieni poika, pieni tyttö
• Spanish- un niño pequeño; una niña pequeña
• Russian- маленький мальчик; маленькая девочка

In some languages, plurals also play a role, and there needs to be agreement there, as well. Luckily, English is easier in that respect, and there is no need to learn additional endings for adjectives. 

• English – a beautiful house; beautiful houses
• Finnish – kaunis talo; kauniita taloja
• Bulgarian – красива къща; красиви къщи

2. More than one adjective

If we want to describe something further, we can add two or more adjectives before the words we are describing (nouns, gerunds, etc.)

What a beautiful, small garden.

In such cases, the adjectives come in a particular order.

• I have a big brown dog. ✅
• I have a brown big dog. ❌

*The order of adjectives is not written in stone. Different sources order adjectives differently and sometimes even have more or fewer categories.

Generally speaking, the adjectives we use to talk about our opinions or thoughts about something or someone (also called opinion adjectives¹) come before the rest. The rest are collectively called fact adjectives². Fact adjectives describe a factual feature someone or something has in terms of height, shape, color, origin, etc.

• Pretty¹, round² table.
• Beautiful¹, red_² dress.
• Nice¹, long² hair.

3. Types and order of adjectives: an (interactive) infographic

For the interactive features below to work, consider using the Chrome browser.

This infographic is based on the order presented in the Farlex Grammar Book Complete English Grammar Rules.

4. Adjectives that have a fixed position

It became clear that adjectives can come both before or after the word they describe and even though there is a specific way to order multiple adjectives – that too is flexible sometimes.

Most adjectives, as shown above with the adjective red can take both positions. However, there are adjectives that can only have a predictive position, and placing them differently is not a matter of opinion or emphasis, it’s simply wrong. Many of these adjectives start with the letter “a”.

• asleep
• awake
• afraid
• alone

The list goes on.

5. Conclusion

• Simply put, adjectives are words that are used to describe other words in terms of size, height, width, or some other quality.
• Most adjectives can be placed right before the word they describe or right after it, following a linking verb, for example, to be. Some, however, have a fixed position.
• When describing more than one quality, we can have several adjectives in a sentence. They usually come in a particular order.
• The order of adjectives in English is not written in stone. Different sources have a different order, some even have additional or fewer categories than the ones shown here.
• There are two main categories of adjectives: opinion adjectives & fact adjectives.
• Generally, opinion adjectives come before fact adjectives.

If you are interested in taking a more in-depth look at the topic, check out the “The Order of Adjectives in English: Part 2 – The Big Bad Wolf or How Order Changes” post. (opens in a new tab)