What is the Comparative Degree?
The comparative degree is a grammatical form used to compare two people, things, or ideas. It shows that one has a higher or lower degree of a quality than the other.
This fundamental structure allows us to express differences in size, speed, quality, importance, and countless other characteristics with precision and clarity.
Quick Example
“My car is faster than yours.”
Here, we’re comparing the speed of two cars, indicating one possesses more of this quality than the other.
One-Syllable Adjective Rules
Single-syllable adjectives follow straightforward patterns, though there are important spelling considerations to keep in mind.
- Standard Addition
Simply add -er to the end of the adjective
- tall → taller
- fast → faster
- small → smaller
- Words Ending in -e
Just add -r (don’t double the e)
- large → larger
- nice → nicer
- safe → safer
