Degrees of Adjective
An adjective is a word which modifies (tells us more about) a noun or a pronoun.
Examples: hot tea, old man, beautiful girl, white shirt, intelligent student, interesting story, handsome boy, huge room.
In the above examples, ‘hot, old, beautiful, white, intelligent’ are adjectives because they modify (give more information about) the attached nouns.
Every adjective has its three degrees.
- Positive Adjective
- Comparative Adjective
- Superlative Adjective
These three degrees of an adjective express the intensity of adjective in increasing order. e.g. big – bigger – biggest, good – better – best.
Examples:
| Positive | Comparative | Superlative |
|---|---|---|
| Happy | Happier | Happiest |
| Heavy | Heavier | Heaviest |
| Large | Larger | Largest |
| Short | Shorter | Shortest |
| Lucky | Luckier | Luckiest |
| Old | Older | Oldest |
| Many | More | Most |
| Little | Less | Least |
| Bad | Worse | Worst |
| Horrible | More horrible | Most horrible |
| Attractive | More Attractive | Most Attractive |
| Beautiful | More beautiful | Most beautiful |
⇒ Use of Comparative Adjectives
A comparative adjective is used to show a characteristic or a property of one thing (noun or pronoun) in a comparison to another thing (only one thing).
It makes comparison between two things (not more than two).
Words like “than” & “to” are used after a comparative adjective in a sentence to show comparison of the two things.
Examples:
- A bus is bigger than a car.
- She is cleverer than him.
- A car is heavier than a bicycle.
- You are taller than me.
- He is more handsome than his brother.
- Your voice is louder than her voice.
⇒ Use of Superlative Adjective
A superlative adjective is used to show a characteristic or a property of one thing (noun or pronoun) in a comparison to many other things (many things, more than one). It makes comparison of one thing to many other things.
A superlative degree expresses highest intensity (i.e. quality or quantity) of a thing in a comparison to other many things (not one but more than one).
A superlative adjective states that a thing is surpassing all the other things in terms of property, characteristic or quantity.
Example:
Atif is the tallest boy of his class.
It means that john is surpassing all the boys of his class in tallness. No one other boy, in the class, is taller than john. It makes the comparison of John and all the students of his class.
Words like “of” and “in” are used after a superlative degree in the sentence. An article “the” should be used before a superlative degree when modifying a particular noun.
Some Examples:
- Einstein was the most intelligent scientist in the world.
- He is the richest man of the town.
- He is the most brilliant boy of his class.
- My room is the biggest of all room in my house.
- Sara is the most talkative girl in his family.
- A train is the fastest vehicle.
- Rive Nile is the deepest river in the world.