Degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs
grammatical feature of adjectives or adverbs which indicates the intensity of a specific feature, usually positive, comparative or superlative
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 (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positive degree) 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 (as with the English words big and fully); the comparative degree, which indicates greater degree (e.g. bigger and more fully [comparative of superiority] or as big and as fully [comparative of equality] or less big and less fully [comparative of inferiority]); and the superlative, which indicates greatest degree (e.g. biggest and most fully [superlative of superiority] or least big and least fully [superlative of inferiority]). Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree of a particular quality (called elative in Semitic linguistics).
Comparatives and superlatives may be formed in morphology by inflection, as with the English and German -er and -(e)st forms and Latin's -ior (superior, excelsior), or syntactically, as with the English more... and most... and the French plus... and le plus... forms (see § Formation of comparatives and superlatives, below).
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