M03 mgl oth glb 6996 adv indd

Groups of adjectives
1 
Adjective order
We often use more than one adjective to describe a noun. We put opinion adjectives, 
e.g. 
fantastic
, 
beautiful
, 
useful
, 
charming
before all others:
✗
I’ve bought a new fantastic MP3 player.
✓
I’ve bought a 
fantastic
 new MP3 player.
We put the category which is most permanent or important (usually ‘type’ or ‘purpose’) 
next to the noun; these are often part of the noun, e.g. 
mobile phone
:
✗
We removed the gas heating old system.
✓
We removed the old 
gas heating
 system.
More on compound nouns 
➤
Unit 70.1
If there are other adjectives, we usually put them in this order:
a large well-preserved eighteenth-century farmhouse 
size
+ 
quality
 
/
 
character
+ 
age
 
/
 
shape
+ 
colour
 
+ 
origin
+ 
material
a square black box a grey Italian leather sofa
!
We don’t usually use more than three or four adjectives before a noun. If we want to give 
more information, we can use additional clauses:
[
Elaine’s just bought a beautiful well-preserved eighteenth-century French stone farmhouse.
]
Elaine’s just bought 
a beautiful French
 stone farmhouse 
which is well-preserved and dates 
from the eighteenth century
.
2 
Paired adjectives
If two adjectives describe different parts of the same thing, we put 
and
between them:
✗
The chrome steel door glinted in the sun.
✓
The