Comparatives and Superlatives

Comparatives and superlatives help us compare people, places, or things.

There are two ways to form comparatives. The first way is for long adjectives, which have three or more syllables. With long adjectives, we use more to form a comparative phrase with than. For example, "Sarah is more beautiful than Martha." The second way is for short adjectives, which have only one or two syllables. With short adjectives, we add -er to the end of the word, as in, "Jacob is smarter than Ed." For short adjectives ending in y, like "happy," we drop the "y" and add -ier. For example, "Lucy is happier than Rob."

Similarly, we form superlatives in two different ways, depending on the length of the adjective. With long adjectives we use the most, as in "He is the most intelligent person I know." With short adjectives, we add -est to the end of the word. For example, "Johnny is the fastest runner on the team." For short adjectives ending in y, we drop the "y" and add -iest, as in, "She is the prettiest girl in the world."