Everything You Need to Know About Comparatives and Superlatives in English

Comparative adjectives compare two nouns, while superlative adjectives describe nouns in terms of being the most or least of a particular quality.

What are comparative and superlative adjectives?

Comparative and superlative adjectives are the forms adjectives take when comparing multiple nouns. But what’s the difference between them, and how are they used?

This quick guide will answer all of your questions. It will go over what comparative and superlative adjectives are and how to form both regular and irregular comparatives and superlatives. It will also provide a number of example sentences to illustrate the differences.

The LanguageTool Grammar Checker can help ensure you’re using comparative and superlative adjectives correctly.

Comparative forms of adjectives

Comparatives in English are used when comparing two nouns. There are two ways to create comparative adjectives.

You can either add “-er” to the end of the adjective (e.g., “Loud” -> “Louder”), or you can add “more” in front of the adjective (e.g., “Expensive” -> “More expensive”).

The general rule of thumb is that with short monosyllabic words, the comparative is formed by adding “-er” (e.g., “Low” -> “Lower”). With longer words, it is formed by adding a preceding “more” (e.g., “Important“ -> “More important”). 

Superlative forms of adjectives

The difference between comparative adjectives and superlative adjectives is that superlatives are used to show that an adjective is the most or least of a quality. In other words, they describe a noun in an extreme way. Usually, superlatives compare a singular individual noun to a group.

Like comparatives, there are two ways to form superlatives. You can either add “-est” to the end of the adjective (e.g., “Loud” -> “Loudest”) or add “most” in front of the adjective (e.g., “Expensive“ -> “Most expensive”).

How you form superlatives depends on the length of the adjective, just like with comparatives—short monosyllabic words typically get “-est,” while longer words get “most” in front of them.

Additionally, superlatives are always preceded by the determiner “the.”

Irregular comparatives and superlatives

Unfortunately, comparatives and superlatives are not always as direct as the explanation above; nothing in the English language is. English language rules carry a boatload of exceptions, and this one is no different.

This brings us to irregular comparatives and superlatives. This means that these words don’t follow the previously mentioned rules of adding “-er” or “-est” after the adjective or adding “more” or “most” before.

Don’t let this worry you, though. LanguageTool can help you achieve better writing by correcting spelling and grammar mistakes. This multilingual text editor can also strengthen your writing by providing synonyms that’ll help you accurately convey your message and provide stylistic improvements. Try it out.