What is a superlative?

A superlative adjective is an adjective that makes a comparison to the highest degree.

Like all adjectives, superlative adjectives modify a noun or pronoun by giving additional information about its qualities.

For example:

• My dog is the best fetcher at the dog park.

The superlative adjective 'the best' describes the speaker's dog. It shows that the dog is great at playing fetch – better than all the other dogs!

You typically form a superlative adjective by adding the before the word and -est or -iest to the end of the word. Some longer superlative adjectives need to have the most put in front of them (e.g. the most delicious).

We use the with superlative adjectives because you are picking out a particular example from a group, which means using the definite article.

• Incorrect example: My mom was latest parent to pick me up.
• Correct example: My mom was the latest parent to pick me up.