The Bad Big Wolf? A Proofreader’s Guide to Adjective Order
If the phrases black little dress and red dry wine sound strange in your head, you already have an intuitive grasp of adjective order – even if you’ve never formally studied it. In English, when we use multiple adjectives to build up a picture of a noun, they don’t fall into a random sequence. Instead, they follow a predictable pattern based on their function.
Most fluent speakers don’t consciously know the rules for how to order adjectives, but getting it wrong instantly sounds off. In this post, we’ll walk you through what adjective order is, how it works, and a few fun exceptions that prove the rule.
What Is an Adjective?
Adjectives are words that describe a noun’s quality or state of being. They’re often called “describing words” because they tell us more about a noun’s appearance, quantity, mood, and more.
In English, they’re typically placed before the noun:
The old cat is asleep.
The funny men are laughing.
The big balloon is floating away.
Adjectives can also come after linking verbs, like in The cat is old.
You can string adjectives together to provide more information about the noun:
The ugly old cat is asleep.
The two funny men are laughing.
The big pink balloon is floating away.
When you stack adjectives of this type like this, their order matters – it follows a set pattern that “sounds right” to fluent speakers. We’ll take a closer look at how to order adjectives in English and why the right order matters. But first, we’ll explain the difference between adjectives ruled by this order and descriptions that are formatted a different way.
Cumulative vs. Coordinating Adjectives
Before we get into the conventions for adjective order, we need to take a step back and look at the two different types of adjectives you might see grouped together in a sentence. This matters because the traditional adjective order rules apply to only one of these types.
At a high level, adjectives fall into two categories:
- Cumulative adjectives: These build on one another to describe different aspects of the same noun. They are not separated by commas, and their order matters to how they sound.
- Coordinating adjectives: These describe a noun in a similar or equal way. They are separated by commas (or the word and), and their order can often be changed without affecting meaning or flow.
Understanding the difference between cumulative and coordinating adjectives will make it much easier to spot correct adjective order – and correct comma usage – when proofreading.
Examples of Coordinating Adjectives
Coordinating adjectives work as a team. Each adjective modifies the noun independently, rather than building a single, layered description. Because of this, they usually belong to the same category (such as physical qualities or opinions).
There are two reliable signs that adjectives are coordinating:
- You can change their order without the sentence sounding awkward.
- You can add and between them, and the sentence still sounds natural.
Consider these examples:
It was a rainy, windy night.
It was a windy, rainy night.
You are a loyal and dependable friend.
You are a dependable and loyal friend.
In both cases, the adjectives carry equal weight. Rainy and windy describe the night to the same degree, just as dependable and loyal describe the friend. Because they are coordinating adjectives, we separate them with a comma or and.
Examples of Cumulative Adjectives
Cumulative adjectives, on the other hand, do not work independently. Instead, each adjective adds a new layer of detail, narrowing or refining the meaning of the noun as you go. Because they form a single, combined description, we do not separate them with commas.
We can change one adjective from the earlier example to illustrate this:
It was a cold winter night.
Here, winter plays a more central role by defining the type of night, while cold adds extra detail. It can be helpful to break up the description and think of this as a winter night that is cold. Swapping the adjectives (a winter cold night) or inserting and (a cold and winter night) sounds unnatural, which tells us these are cumulative adjectives.
Cumulative adjective combinations are where adjective order becomes important – and they are the focus of the rules we’ll explore next.
What Is Adjective Order?
When you use cumulative adjectives to modify a noun, you should place them in a specific sequence based on their type. Here’s the usual order, which can be remembered using the acronym OSASCOMP:
- Opinion/Quality (e.g., lovely, boring, and difficult)
- Size (e.g., big, small, and tiny)
- Age (e.g., old, young, and new)
- Shape (e.g., round, square, and long)
- Color (e.g., red, blue, and pale)
- Origin/Nationality (e.g., Italian, Chinese, and Egyptian)
- Material (e.g., leather, wooden, and silk)
- Purpose/Type (e.g., running [shoes] and cooking [pot])
Note: Quantity (e.g., one, several, and many) typically comes before this sequence.
To describe a pair of old brown leather boots, you have the adjectives brown, old, and leather. Following the order of adjectives, the correct way to phrase this would be:
Old (age) → brown (color) → leather (material) → boots
Leather brown old boots or brown leather old boots would be incorrect.
This same logic explains why we say Clifford the big red dog or big fat Greek wedding. If you say Clifford the red big dog or Greek fat big wedding, it just sounds…wrong.
Using Adjectives from the Same Group
When adjectives come from different groups (such as size, color, or age), punctuating them is pretty straightforward – you don’t need to use any commas. For example, old and brown come from different adjective categories (age and color), so they don’t need separation:
There is an old brown tree in the backyard.
But when two adjectives belong to the same group – such as two qualities or two opinions – they are coordinating, not cumulative, and you should add a comma or the word and between them:
The ambitious, determined student finished her project early.
The ambitious and determined student finished her project early.
This signals to the reader that both adjectives are independently describing the noun, rather than forming a single, combined idea.
In the rare case that you use three or more adjectives from the same group, list them with commas between each one, and use and before the final adjective:
I love this amazing, delicious, and nutritious sandwich.
Not sure whether adjectives are in the same group? Try this trick: If you could rearrange the adjectives without making the sentence sound odd, they’re probably in the same group:
I love this delicious, nutritious, and amazing sandwich.
Delicious, nutritious, and amazing sandwich still works, and sounds just as tasty.
If a sentence sounds wrong when you reorder the adjectives, they’re likely from different groups, meaning they are cumulative and don’t need commas. Here’s an example:
The house is surrounded by a tall wooden fence.
If we change the order, wooden tall fence sounds strange – in line with the adjectives being from different groups.
Exceptions to the Rule
Like many grammar rules in English, the order of adjectives isn’t completely set in stone. While the standard pattern works in most cases, sometimes sound and style take priority.
Take this familiar phrase from the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood:
“The big bad wolf”
According to standard adjective order, bad (a quality/opinion) should come before big (a size). But no native speaker would say “the bad big wolf.” It just doesn’t have the same impact. Why? Because of euphony – the pleasing rhythm or sound of words together. In spoken and literary English, we sometimes bend the rules to create a more memorable or a musical phrase.
Another example comes from Bob Dylan’s song “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” He sings:
“I’m walking down that long lonesome road.”
Here, long (size) comes before lonesome (quality), even though that technically flips the expected order. But lonesome long road? It just feels wrong, disrupting both rhythm and tone.
You’ll hear other familiar phrases that follow this pattern:
Little green men (not green little men)
Big old house (not old big house)
Nice cold drink (not cold nice drink)
These phrases are so familiar, they’re almost idiomatic phrases with euphony overriding grammar.
Exceptions to adjective order aren’t common, and they’re hard to predict by rule alone. But if something sounds natural and flows well, it’s probably fine.
Becoming A Proofreader
Adjective order is one of those English rules that you probably always knew but never realized you knew. We explore adjective order in more detail in the grammar module of our Becoming A Proofreader course, along with many more intricacies of the language to look out for while editing. You can try two lessons for free and start building the skills you need to become a professional proofreader.
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