Firstly you should know that Adjectives are words which help in modifying a noun. They can also be used for the purpose of comparison through comparatives or superlative forms.
When two things are compared, comparative form is used but when three or more than three entities are compared, we need to use the highest degree of comparison through superlative adjectives. This can be done either through adding -est suffix to the original form of adjective or using words ‘most’ and ‘least’. In both the usage the superlative from is preceded by the word ‘the’, to make the object standout.
Let’s discuss three rules to help you correctly form superlative adjectives.
1. Superlative Adjectives by adding -est suffix
Some adjectives which take the superlative form by adding -est as their suffix are:
| Original form | Superlative Form | Examples in Sentence |
| Fast | Fastest | Ram is the fastest runner in his class. |
| Bold | Boldest | The boldest act of the day was saving the drowning child. |
| Cruel | Cruelest | The cruelest people are disliked by all. |
| Deep | deepest | Out of the many ways that we can be injured, emotional wounds are the deepest. |
| Fierce | fiercest | A woman is the fiercest when she is protecting her child. |
| Grand | grandest | The wealthy merchant threw the grandest party for her daughter’s wedding. |
| Humble | humblest | The humblest people make it big in their lives. |
| Lazy | laziest | Sloths are considered to be the laziest creatures. |
| Mean | meanest | Simran is the meanest person I have ever known. |
| Risky | riskiest | Stock market is considered one of the riskiest professions. |
| Sharp | sharpest | Rakesh is proud of her sister who is the sharpest in her class. |
| Wild | wildest | Scuba diving is one of my wildest dreams. |
2. Superlative Adjectives by adding “most” to Original Word
Following are some adjectives which take the word ‘most’ before it’s superlative form:
| Original form | Superlative form | Sentence Example |
| Beautiful | most beautiful | Radhika is the most beautiful among her sisters. |
| Difficult | most difficult | Javed aimed to crack the most difficult problem. |
| Expensive | most expensive | Time is the most expensive gift that can be given. |
| Interesting | most interesting | ‘KGF’ is the most interesting movie made in recent years. |
3. Changing ‘y’ to ‘i’ and Adding Suffix ‘est’
For the adjectives which end with ‘-y’ ,their spelling is changed when -est is added. The -y is changed to an –‘i’ before adding -est.
Examples are illustrated below:
| Original form | Superlative form | Sentence Examples |
| Angry | angriest | My mom was the angriest when u bunked the class. |
| Bloody | bloodiest | Kargil war was one of the bloodiest battles. |
| Dirty | dirtiest | He was standing at the door in the dirtiest uniform. |
4. Use of Different Word for Superlative Adjectives
It is a miscellaneous case where there are some adjectives and adverbs which do not follow the rules mentioned above while forming their superlatives. They use a separate different word for their superlative form. For eg:
| Original From | Superlative From |
| Good/well | Best |
| Bad/badly | Worst |
| Far | the farthest/the furthest |
| Little | least |
That is a lot of information to remember and at first read it can be a bit confusing, how about bookmarking it for future reference.