Hello reader! In this article, we are going to discuss an exciting and important concept, which is the various degrees of comparison of adjectives in English grammar. This chapter is extremely important in order to master the concept of adjectives and learn English grammar effectively.

Essentially, an adjective is a part of speech that is used to qualify a noun or a pronoun. It means, it highlights the quality of the noun or the pronoun in the sentence. The various degrees of comparison of adjectives denote the levels of the quality of the noun mentioned. These degrees are also known as the forms of the adjective. There are three degrees in which an adjective can be formed/ compared. They are as follows:

Degrees of Comparison

Positive Degree
Comparative Degree
Superlative Degree

Positive Degree of the Adjective

The primary form of the adjective is called the positive degree. It is the adjective itself. For example,

Ron is tall.
The bridge is long.
Michael is a bad person.
Monica is studious.
The scenery of beautiful.

Comparative Degree of the Adjective

The comparative degree of the adjective is used when two persons or things are compared. To change the positive degree into comparative, the adjective is adjoined with ‘er’ or ‘more’. If we take the previous examples into consideration, they are written in the comparative degree as follows:

Ron is taller than Donald.
The Howrah bridge is longer than the Victoria bridge.
Michael is worse than Adam.
Monica is more studious than Mary.
The scenery in this room is more beautiful than the one in that room.

Superlative Degree of the Adjective

When comparing three or more nouns or subjects, the superlative degree is used in the sentence. Let us, again, take the above three adjectives and write them in the superlative degree. They can be written as follows:

Ron is the tallest person in the room.
The Howrah bridge is the longest bridge in the world.
Michael is the worst person I’ve seen.
Monica is the most studious student in the room.
That scenery is the most beautiful scenery of all.

Rules for Writing an adjective in the Positive, Comparative, and Superlative Degrees

The following are some of the important rules for the degrees of comparison of adjectives:

Rule 1: While comparing the subjects between two things, only the comparative degree is to be used. For example,

Mary is the richest of the two women. (INCORRECT)
Mary is the richer of the two women. (CORRECT)

Rule 2: While writing a sentence in the comparative degree, the word ‘than’ is used after the adjective. hence, the structure of the adjective in the comparative degree is “adjective + er + than“. For example,

Don is taller than his father.

Rule 3: Adjectives for the Same Noun

It is mentioned above that the comparative degree is used when comparing two persons or things. However, two qualities are compared of a single person or thing, the positive degree should be used. And the word ‘more’ is used before the adjective. For example,

Ram is more lucky than hardworking. (The word Luckier should not be used).
His speech is more loud than clear.

Rule 4: How to Convert Comparative and Superlative into positive Degree

If an adjective is to be changed from comparative or superlative degrees to positive degree, the adjective should be used between “as—-as” and “so——as”. For example,

“Dan Brown is greater than Hitchins” can be changed into “Hitchins is not so great as Dan Brown”.
“Mount Everest is the highest mountain peak in the world” can be written as “No other peak in the world is as high as Mount Everest”.

Rule 5: While writing an adjective in the superlative degree, the article ‘the’ is used before it. For example,

Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world.
Russia is the largest country.
Maria is the tallest girl in the class.

Some more Rules

Rule 6: For adjectives ending in ‘ior’ such as superior, inferior, junior, senor, prior, anterior, posterior, exterior, interior, etc, ‘to’ is used in the comparative degree instead of ‘than’. For example,

She is junior to me in college.
His grades are inferior to mine.

Rule 7: Some adjectives can only be used in the positive degree and not in comparative and superlative degrees. They are:

perfect, supreme, impossible, absolute, ideal, everlasting, eternal, triangular, unique, universal, entire, chief, entire, major, minor, superior, etc.

Rule 8: For directions, there is no comparative degree. They can only written in positive and superlative degrees.

East- Easternmost
West- Westernmost
North- Northernmost
South- Southernmost
Up- Uppermost
Bottom- Bottomost

Rule 9: The words ‘prefer’ and ‘preferable’ can be used only in the comparative degree, and the preposition ‘to’ is used instead of ‘that’.

I prefer Coffee to Tea.
I prefer running to walking.

Also, instead of ‘to’, ‘rather than’ can also be used.

I prefer Coffee rather than Tea.
I prefer running rather than walking.

The rule for Converting Superlative Degree into Positive and Comparative Degrees

In the degrees of comparison of adjectives, while converting the superlative degree into the comparative degree, the words “any other” should be used in the comparative degree after the adjective. While converting the superlative degree into the positive degree, the words “no other” should be used.

Superlative degree: Australia is the smallest continent in the world.
Comparative degree: Australia is smaller than any other continent in the world.
Positive degree: No other continent in the world is as small as Australia.

What is an Adjective?

An adjective is a word which describes the quality of the noun/ pronoun in the sentence. The adjective may be used either attributively, i.e., along with the noun or predicatively, as part of the predicate of the sentence. In this article lets see various types of adjectives.

Attributive Adjective: There are dark clouds.
Predicative Adjective: The clouds are dark.

Types of Adjectives

Adjective of Quality

This adjective describes the quality of the noun in the sentence.

Example:

She has beautiful eyes.
The food is delicious.

Adjective of Quantity

This adjective shows the quantity of the thing mentioned in the sentence.

Example:

I bought some apples.
There is not much sense in what he said.

Adjective of Number

It shows the number of the noun/pronoun that is mentioned.

Example:

There are sixteen pens in the bag.
He is the first person to achieve that record.

Demonstrative Adjective

This type of adjective points out which person or thing is meant in the sentence.

Example:

This chair is made of iron.
That type of behavior is not allowed.
What do you want?

Adjectives used as Nouns

Some adjectives are used as plural nouns. They denote a class or section of people.

Example:

“The Poor” means the section of poor people.
“The employed” means employed people.

Adjective Phrases

In some sentences, there will be a group of words which do the job of an adjective. That’s called an adjective phrase.

Example:

That’s an idea with a difference.
She wore a ring made of gold.

Now that we have discussed the types of adjectives, lets understand degrees of comparison in brief.

DEGREES OF COMPARISON

“Degrees of Comparison” is the most important topic related to adjectives. While comparing the attributes of nouns or pronouns, the degrees of adjectives change accordingly. There are three types of degrees of comparison.

Positive Degree

This is an adjective in its simple form. When describing the Quality of a noun without comparing anyone, positive degree is used.

Example:

This is a small town.

Comparative Degree

Comparative degree is used when two nouns or pronouns are compared. It indicates the higher degree of the quality than the positive degree.

Example:

This town is smaller than that town.

Superlative Degree

It indicates the highest degree of adjectives and is used when two or more things are in comparison.

Example:

This is the smallest town in the country.

[In the above three examples, the adjective “small” is used in varying degrees accordingly “Small- Smaller- Smallest”].

Rules for changing Degrees of Comparison

While changing positive to comparative, most of the adjectives add an ‘er’ to the positive degree and ‘est’ while changing into superlative.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Fast	Faster	Fastest
Dirty	Dirtier	Dirtiest
Clean	Cleaner	Cleanest
Small	Smaller	Smallest
Big	Bigger	Biggest
Nice	Nice	Nicest
Fine	Finer	Finer
Costly	Costlier	Costliest
Tiny	Tinier	Tiniest
Funny	Funnier	Funniest
Tiny	Tinier	Tiniest
Large	Larger	Largest

Some adjectives use the adverbs more and most while changing into comparative and superlative degrees respectively.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Difficult	More Difficult	Most Difficult
Intelligent	More Intelligent	Most Intelligent
Important	More Important	Most Important

Some adjectives do not go by the above rules and use different words for comparative and superlative degrees. Here are some of them:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Good	Better	Best
Bad	Worse	Worst
Little	Less	Least
Much	More	Most
Late	Later	Latest, Last
In	Inner	Innermost
Up	Upper	Uppermost

While comparing the two adjectives of the same person, ‘er’ should not be used in comparative degree.

Example:

Mohan is ‘more wise’ than strong. [In normal circumstances, the word WISER is used in comparative degree But here in this sentence, both the adjectives are of the same person (Mohan). Hence ‘more wise’ should be used.]

While converting some adjectives from positive degree to comparative, some adjectives should be accompanied by the preposition ‘to’ instead of ‘than’.

They are: Inferior, Superior, Prior, Anterior, Posterior, junior, senior.

Example:

India’s performance is superior to Australia’s.
He is junior to me.

Double comparatives and superlatives should never be used.

For example, “Apples are more sweeter than mangoes” should never be used. The comparative degree of sweet is sweeter. Hence “Apples are sweeter than mangoes” is correct.

More varieties and rules are learnt while solving practice exercises.

For more on grammar click here

Like us on Facebook

Adjectives

Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives

Degrees of Comparison

Rules for Writing an adjective in the Positive, Comparative, and Superlative Degrees

The rule for Converting Superlative Degree into Positive and Comparative Degrees

Types of Adjectives – Introduction to Adjectives

What is an Adjective?

Types of Adjectives

DEGREES OF COMPARISON