Degrees of Comparison

Prepared by:
Akshay. R. Ballal
Introduction
Degrees of Comparison are used when we compare one
person or one thing with another.

There are three Degrees of Comparison in English.

They are :

1) Positive Degree
2)Comparative degree.
3) Superlative degree.
Positive Degree
When we speak about only one person or thing, We use the Positive degree.
Examples:

• This house is big.

In this sentence only one noun “The house” is talked about.

• He is a tall student.
• This flower is beautiful.
• He is an intelligent boy.

Each sentence mentioned above talks about only one noun.

 Comparative Degree
When we compare two persons or two things with each other, We
Comparative degree.

Examples:
a)This house is bigger than that one.

The term “bigger” is comparative version of the term “big”.

Both these sentences convey the same meaning.

b) He is more intelligent than this boy.

c) He is taller than Ram
d) Mr. Sharma is smarter than Mr. Gupta
e) Atlantic Ocean is deeper than Indian Ocean
 Superlative Degree
When we compare more than two persons or things with another we use the
Superlative degree

Examples:

a)Pacific Ocean is the deepest ocean

Here ‘deepest’ is the superlative version of ‘deep’

b) Yash is the tallest boy in this class

c) Jupiter is the biggest planet in the Universe
d) Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world
We always use ‘the’ before the superlative degree