Comparative and Superlative Adjectives and Adverbs

LIKE ADJECTIVES, SOME ADVERBS CAN TAKE COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE FORMS, WITH -ER AND –EST.

• Sally works hard.
• Steve works harder than Sally.
• Kathy and Sue work hardest of all.

The bird sings loudly.

• The bird sings loudly.
• The children sing more loudly than the bird.
• Of all three, Pete sings most loudly.

loud	louder	loudest

• For adverbs ending in –ly, add “more” to the original adverb to form the comparative, and “most” to form the superlative. 

Adverb	Comparative	Superlative
quickly	more quickly	most quickly
slowly	more slowly	most slowly
carefully	more carefully	most carefully
often	more often	most often

IRREGULAR COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

• Some comparative and superlative forms are irregular and do not follow any rules or patterns. These must be memorized.

IRREGULAR ADVERBS

Word	Comparative	Superlative
badly	worse	worst
much	more	most
little	less	least
well	better	best

IRREGULAR ADJECTIVES

Word	Comparative	Superlative
good	better	best
bad	worse	worst
much	more	most
little	less	least
old	older elder	oldest eldest

EXAMPLE:

• Comparative and Superlative of GOOD
• Nathan made good stew.
• Molly's stew was better than Nathan's.
• Ezra made the best stew of all.
• Comparative and Superlative of WELL
• Joana drives well.
• Jenny drives better than Joana.
• Lisa drives the best.

COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE PATTERNS I

• We use as … as to say that things are equal or unequal.
• Our house is as big as yours.
• It isn’t as cold as yesterday.
• We often use a phrase with “than” after a comparison.
• The steak is more expensive than the fish.
• After “than” we use an object pronoun or a subject pronoun + a verb.
• She is older than me / than I am.

COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE PATTERNS II

• We normally use the before a superlative.
• The last question is the most difficult.
• Note the pattern with one of.
• He is one of the best lawyers.
• After a superlative we can use in or of. We use in with places and groups of people.
• It’s the coolest hotel in Oxford.
• Who’s the best player in the team?
• August is the hottest month of the year.

COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE PATTERNS III

• Less and least are the opposites of more and most. We use them with both long and short words.
• I’m the least musical person in the world.
• I go out less often these days.
• We can modify the comparative with much, a lot, far, slightly, a bit.
• It’s much faster by tube.
• Business is a bit better this year.
• I got up far later than usually.

COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE PATTERNS IV

• When something is increasing all the time we use a double comparative.
• The queue was getting longer and longer.
• Everything gets more and more expensive these days.
• We use two comparatives with “the” to express that a change in one thing goes with a change in another.
• The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get there.
• The faster, the better.