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Study Resource: Describing the group for superlative adjectives

By: revel arroway

When you’re making a comparison using superlative adjectives, you will need to describe the group of nouns that you are comparing. Use this structure:

superlative adjective

noun

descriptive phrase

the nicest kid in the class

the most interesting chapter of the book

my worst grade this semester

the purplest dress that I ever saw

Below, we discuss the most common ways to build that descriptive phrase.

Superlative adjective + prepositional phrase

We often use a prepositional phrase (preposition + noun) to describe the group you are comparing to. It generally comes after the superlative adjective:

  • A preposition of place + noun will tell you the location or place where the group we are describing is found:

    • This is the oldest story book at the library.

    • That is the heaviest textbook in your bag.

  • We also often use in+ collective noun, if the collective noun describes the group.

    • That is the fastest bird in the flock.

    • She was the best student in her group.

  • When the noun after the superlative adjective is a piece of a larger noun, you can use of+ larger noun.

    • Margot ate the biggest piece of the cake.

    • The most frightening part of “Jaws” is when the shark attacks.

  • Often, we use a prepositional phrase beginning with of all

    • Sarah is the smartest of all the students in her class.

    • This is the wildest party of all the parties that Margot has thrown.

    • He is the best of all my friends.

    With context, you can drop the noun after all:

    • They are all good tennis players, but Rafa is the best of all.

Notice that the noun after the preposition is also usually definite, because we are making a comparison between one thing/group and another specific thing/group.

Superlative adjective + time phrase

You can use a time phrase like last year, yesterday, all evening, ever, or of all time to define the group you are comparing to. This is common when you are comparing different events, because events happen at different times.

For example:

  • This was Mr. Albert’s least interesting lecture all year.

    Out of all of Mr. Albert’s lectures this year, this is the least interesting lecture.
  • What was your worst class yesterday?

    Out of all the classes you attended yesterday, which was the worst class?
Tip

We very often use the word ever and the phrase of all time with superlative adjectives when we want to say that we are comparing something with every thing like it that has ever existed. For example:

Rafa is the best tennis player ever / of all time!

Out of every tennis player that has existed, Rafa is the best.

Superlative adjective + relative clause

You can also give more information about the group you are choosing from by using a relative clause to describe the noun as well as the superlative adjective. For example:

  • Mr. Albert was the nicest teacher that I had last year.

    Out of all the teachers that I had last year, Mr. Albert was the nicest.
  • This is the most delicious pie that my mother has ever baked!

    Out of all of the pies that my mother has baked, this is the most delicious pie.
Tip

Many of the other ways to describe the group you are choosing from are actually shortened versions of relative clauses! For example:

  • She is the shortest girl in my class.

    = She is the shortest girl who is in my class.

  • It was the best game ever.

    = It was the best game that ever happened.

  • This was the least exciting day this week.

    = This was the least exciting day that happened this week.

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