Degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs

The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two or more entities, three or more entities, or when not comparing entities in terms of a certain property or way of doing something.
The usual degrees of comparison are the positive, which denotes a certain property or a certain way of doing something without comparing ; the comparative degree, which indicates greater degree ; and the superlative, which indicates greatest degree. Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree of a particular quality.
Comparatives and superlatives may be formed in morphology by inflection, as with the English and German -er and -st forms and Latin's -ior, or syntactically, as with the English more... and most... and the French plus... and le plus... forms.

List of degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs

The degrees of comparison found in English are:

the positive degree : e.g. big, fully
the comparative degree
*of superiority: e.g. bigger, more fully
*of equality: e.g. as big, as fully
*of inferiority: e.g. less big, less fully
the superlative degree
*of superiority: e.g. biggest, most fully
*of inferiority: e.g. least big, least fully

Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree of a particular quality.

Formation of comparatives and superlatives

Comparatives and superlatives may be formed in morphology by inflection, as with the English and German -er and -st forms and Latin's -ior, or syntactically, as with the English more... and most... and the French plus... and le plus... forms. Common adjectives and adverbs often produce irregular forms, such as better and best and less and least in English, and meilleur and mieux in French.

Comparative and superlative constructions

Most if not all languages have some means of forming the comparative, although the means can vary significantly from one language to the next.
Comparatives are often used with a conjunction or other grammatical means to indicate to what the comparison is being made, as with than in English, als in German, etc. In Russian and Greek, this can be done by placing the compared noun in the genitive case. With superlatives, the population being considered may be explicitly indicated, as in "the best swimmer out of all the girls".
Languages also possess other structures for comparing adjectives and adverbs, such as "as... as" in English.
А few languages apply comparison to nouns and even verbs. One such language is Bulgarian, where expressions like "по̀ човек, най човек, по-малко човек " and "по̀ обичам, най-малко обичам " are quite usual.

Usage when considering only two things

In many languages, including English, traditional grammar requires the comparative form to be used when at least two things are being considered, even in constructions where the superlative would be used when considering a larger number. For instance, "May the better man win" would be considered correct if there are two individuals competing. However, this rule is not always observed in informal usage; the form "May the best man win" will often be used in that situation, as is required if there were three or more competitors involved. However, in some cases when two subjects with equal qualities are compared, usage of comparative degree is not necessary. For example, "Ram is as good as Shyam"—positive degree; Since Ram and Shyam are equally good, neither is superior which negates the usage of the comparative. In some contexts this can be written in comparative degree — "Ram is not better than Shyam."

Rhetorical use of unbalanced comparatives

In some contexts such as advertising or political speeches, absolute and relative comparatives are intentionally employed in ways that invite comparison, yet the basis of comparison is not explicit. This is a common rhetorical device used to create an implication of significance where one may not actually be present. Although common, such usage is sometimes considered ungrammatical.
For example:

Why pay more?
We work harder.
We sell for less!
More doctors recommend it.
Usage in languages

Indo-European languages

English

English has two grammatical constructions for expressing comparison: a morphological one formed using the suffixes -er and -est, with some irregular forms, and a syntactic one using the adverbs "more", "most", "less" and "least".
As a general rule, words of one syllable require the suffix, while words of three or more syllables require "more" or "most". This leaves words of two syllables—these are idiomatic, some requiring the morphological construction, some requiring the syntactic and some able to use either, with different frequencies according to context.

Morphological comparison

The suffixes -er and -est are of Germanic origin and are cognate with the Latin suffixes -ior and -issimus and Ancient Greek -ῑ́ων : and -ῐστος :. They are typically added to shorter words, words of Anglo-Saxon origin, and borrowed words fully assimilated into English vocabulary. Usually the words taking these inflections have fewer than three syllables.
This system also contains a number of irregular forms, some of which, like "good", "better", and "best", contain suppletive forms. These irregular forms include:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
good	better	best
well	better	best
bad	worse	worst
ill, badly	worse	worst
far	farther	farthest
far	further	furthest
little	less	least
many	more	most
much	more	most

Syntactic comparison

In syntactic construction, inserting the words "more" or "most" before an adjective or adverb modifies the resulting phrase to express a relative degree of that property. Similarly, inserting the diminutives "less" or "least" before an adjective or adverb expresses a lesser degree.
This system is most commonly used with words not of Anglo-Saxon origin – most often in English those of French, Latin, or Greek derivation. This includes adverbs formed with the suffix -ly and such words used as adjectives if they would take -ly as adverbs. It also tends to include longer, technical, or infrequent words. Some more examples:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
beautiful	more beautiful	most beautiful
often	more often	most often
observant	less observant	least observant
coherently	less coherently	least coherently

Absolute adjectives

The meanings of some adjectives are not exhibitable in degrees, making comparative constructions of them inappropriate. Some qualities are either present or absent, applicable or not applicable, such as a rock being cretaceous vs. igneous, so it appears illogical to call anything "very cretaceous", or to try to characterize something as "more igneous" than something else.
Some grammarians object to the use of the superlative or comparative with words such as full, complete, unique, or empty, which by definition already denote a totality, an absence, or an absolute. However, such words are routinely and frequently qualified in contemporary speech and writing. This type of usage conveys more of a figurative than a literal meaning, because in a strictly literal sense, something cannot be more or less unique or empty to a greater or lesser degree.
Many prescriptive grammars and style guides include adjectives for inherently superlative qualities to be non-gradable. Thus, they reject expressions such as more perfect, most unique, and most parallel as illogical pleonasms: after all, if something is unique, it is one of a kind, so nothing can be "very unique", or "more unique" than something else.
Other style guides argue that terms like perfect and parallel never apply exactly to things in real life, so they are commonly used to mean nearly perfect, nearly parallel, and so on; in this sense, more perfect and more parallel are meaningful.

Double comparatives

If an adjective has two comparative markers, it is known as a double comparative. The use of double comparatives is generally associated with Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English, though they were common in Early Modern English and were used by Shakespeare.
In recent times, such constructions have been used humorously, or to convey a sense of erudition, in addition to their original purpose of emphasis.

Double superlatives

Superlative degree of the adjective ''near''

The adjective near may be found in the superlative with omission of the preposition to after it, as in Find the restaurant nearest your house. Joan Maling shows that near is best analysed as an adjective with which the use of to is optional, rather than a preposition.

Balto-Slavic languages

In most Balto-Slavic languages, the comparative and superlative forms are also declinable adjectives.
In Bulgarian, comparative and superlative forms are formed with the clitics по- and най- :
In Czech, Polish, Slovak, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, the comparative is formed from the base form of an adjective with a suffix and superlative is formed with a circumfix.
In Russian, comparative and superlative forms are formed with a suffix or with the words более and самый :