Adjective Order: putting modifiers in natural sounding word order

Purple and pink, paisley cat
A pretty, little, purple-
and-pink paisley pussycat

EVALUATION/OPINION	APPEARANCE	AGE	COLOR	ORIGIN
beautiful	SIZE / MEASURE	new-born	red	GEOGRAPHICAL
good	big / large	old	green	French
bad	small / little	young	blue	Mexican
ugly	low	new	light-yellow	Japanese
interesting	high	antique	striped	mountain
fascinating	heavy	ancient	dark blue	beach
intelligent	SHAPE	five-year-old	deep purple	MATERIAL
pretty	triangular	brand-new	pink	ceramic
unsightly	square	five-day-old	brown	cotton
foul	CONDITION	century-old	rose	wooden
stupid	chipped	mature	olive	brass
silly	broken	middle-age	aqua	polyester
ridiculous	rotten	teenage	lime	metal
easy	shiny	prehistoric	polka-dot	paper

SENTENCE	EVAL	APPEARANCE / QUALITY	AGE	COLOR	ORIGIN/MATERIAL	Noun (or rest of sentence)
Who left a	foul,	rotten,	two-week-old			banana in my desk drawer?
We bought a	practical,	little,		black-and-white plaid,	polyester	seat cover.
They wore a	beautiful,	life-size,		red-and-yellow	feathered, Chinese-dragon	costume.
The artist created a	fantastic,	huge, mobius-shaped,		shiny,	stainless-steel	sculpture.
The	intelligent,	little,	young,	black,	French	poodle stood quiety.
"Olodum" is known for its	powerful,	hypnotic, energetic			Samba-reggae	rhythms and performance.

Speakers rarely use more than three or four adjectives before a noun unless they are trying to be very descriptive.

Usually, the word order in the "appearance" category is size, shape, condition, but other variations occur as well.

APPEARANCE:	SIZE	SHAPE	CONDITION	NOUN PHRASE
A	tall	round	out-of-breath	man sat breathing heavily on the park bench.
Also:
A	tall	out-of -condition	round	man sat breathing heavily on the park bench.
A	out-of -condition	tall	round	man sat breathing heavily on the park bench.

Compare your response to the answer by clicking the "check" button to the right.

#	YOUR RESPONSE	FEEDBACK
1.	An gopher complained about a misdirected golf ball.
2.	A(n) sports car was parked in front of the restaurant.
3.	A barber pole was next to the front door of the barber shop.
4.	A boy was chopping wood in the backyard.
5.	She wore her pumps. "pump" style shoe
6.	You can't take your knife with you on an airplane.
7.	We put a(n) tree in the corner of their office.
8.	My uncle bought a TV.
9.	She offered me tea in a cup.
10.	The elf lived in a house in the forest.

Grammar-Quizzes.com