Adjective may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default ("unmarked") word order, with other orders being permissible. Other languages, such as Tagalog, follow their adjectival orders as rigidly as English. The normal adjectival order of English may be overridden in certain circumstances, especially when one adjective is being fronted. In addition, the usual order of adjectives in English would result in the phrase "the bad big wolf" (opinion before size), but instead the usual phrase is "the big bad wolf", perhaps because the ablaut reduplication rule that high vowels precede
Fossa (animal) species name "ferox" is the Latin adjective "fierce" or "wild". Its common name is spelled fossa in English or "fosa" in Malagasy, the Austronesian language from which it was taken, but some authors have adopted the Malagasy spelling in English. The word is similar to "posa" (meaning "cat") in the Iban language (another Austronesian language) from Borneo, and both terms may derive from trade languages from the 1600s. However, an alternative etymology suggests a link to another word that comes from Malay: "pusa" refers to the Malayan weasel ("Mustela nudipes"). The Malay word "pusa" could have become "posa" for cats