2.117 Comparing things: superlatives

Another way of describing something is to say that it has more of a quality than anything else of its kind. You do this by using a superlative adjective. Only qualitative adjectives usually have superlatives, but a few colour adjectives also have them. Superlatives normally consist of either '-est' added to the end of an adjective and 'the' placed in front of it, as in 'the hardest' and 'the smallest', or of 'the most' placed in front of the adjective, as in 'the most interesting' and 'the most flexible'.

Note that 'good' and 'bad' have the irregular superlative forms 'the best' and 'the worst'.

Note that superlative adjectives are nearly always preceded by 'the', because you are talking about something definite. Occasionally, when superlatives are used as complements, 'the' is omitted (see paragraph 2.122).