Latin · Chapter 7 · Lesson 14 · Grammar primer
Comparatives and superlatives
Altior, altissimus - taller, tallest. The regular pattern, the ablative of comparison, quam, and the irregulars (melior, peior, maior, minor) that Latin passed to every Romance language.
The short version
Comparatives are consonant stems, superlatives are bonus
Take the stem from the genitive singular, add -ior for the comparative and -issimus for the superlative: fortis gives fortior and fortissimus. Then the two behave differently. A comparative declines as a third-declension consonant stem, so its ablative singular is altiore with an -e and its genitive plural is altiorum, even when the positive adjective was an i-stem. A superlative simply declines like bonus, bona, bonum.
altior, altiore; altissimus
Drop quam and the second thing goes into the ablative
There are two ways to compare. Either quam with both items in the same case, altior quam Gaius, or no quam at all and the second item in the ablative, altior Gaio. Both mean taller than Gaius. Quam in front of a superlative does something else entirely: quam celerrime is as fast as possible. And the comparative adverb is just the neuter comparative, always ending -ius: fortius, gravius, altius.
altior Gaio
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article · 6 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
18-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Latin · Free printables
Worksheets for this lesson
Worksheets with answer keys built in. Open any one to view, print or save.
Free for members
The printable worksheets, infographics and PDFs are free with an account. Start a free week and download as many as you like.
Start your free weekLesson 14 of 21 in this chapter