The Order of Adjectives in a Series

It would take a linguistic philosopher to explain why we say "little brown house" and not "brown little house" or why we say "red Italian sports car" and not "Italian red sports car." The order in which adjectives in a series sort themselves out is perplexing for people learning English as a second language. Most other languages dictate a similar order, but not necessarily the same order. It takes a lot of practice with a language before this order becomes instinctive, because the order often seems quite arbitrary (if not downright capricious). There is, however, a pattern. You will find many exceptions to the pattern in the table below, but it is definitely important to learn the pattern of adjective order if it is not part of what you naturally bring to the language.

The categories in the following table can be described as follows:

1. Determiners — articles and other limiters. See Determiners
2. Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting)
3. Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)
4. Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)
5. Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)
6. Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian)
7. Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden)
8. Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADJECTIVES
Determiner	Observation	Physical Description				Origin	Material	Qualifier	Noun
		Size	Shape	Age	Color
a	beautiful			old		Italian		touring	car
an	expensive			antique			silver		mirror
four	gorgeous		long- stemmed		red		silk		roses
her			short		black				hair
our		big		old		English			sheepdog
those			square				wooden	hat	boxes
that	dilapidated	little						hunting	cabin
several		enormous		young		American		basketball	players
some	delicious					Thai			food