superlative
1
3.7
- noun
- /səˈpɜr.lə.tɪv/
- Specialized
:
superlativo
- What are comparative and superlative forms of the word Big?
Examples
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Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN has put out his "2009 Herbie Awards," a list of superlatives that includes a number of SEC players and teams.
Blog text (5) -
Should we go through our superlatives that we have?
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All her adjectives were superlatives.
Fiction book (1999) -
Give all of your superlatives to the 2013 Audi S8.
Blog text (8) -
In high school, I won the senior superlative for best personality, but I wasn't the jock, the cheerleader, or 'popular'—just the kid that people could relate to, and I could help them see and find a smile within themselves.
Blog text (25) -
In English, we form superlatives by adding '-est' or using the word 'most'.
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The teacher asked us to write sentences using superlatives to describe our favorite movies.
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During the meeting, she presented the superlatives of our latest sales report, highlighting the top performers.
Synonyms
The form of a describing word that shows the most of a quality, like smartest or most beautiful
Compounds
- Specialized
An adjective that shows the highest degree of a quality when comparing three or more things
- Specialized
The form of a describing word that shows the most of a quality, like smartest or most beautiful
How Comparative
Surface Forms
Morphology
superlative = super (semi-transparent) = super + lative
Formed with the productive prefix 'super-' plus a Latin-derived combining form '-lative' that is not a standalone English word, so the technical grammatical meaning may not be fully obvious to learners.
Etymology
Superlative comes from the Latin parts super- 'above' and -lative from a root meaning 'to carry', so in grammar a superlative is the form that shows something is 'above' the rest, as in 'happiest' or 'most'.