quam

Three jobs, all common. After a COMPARATIVE it means "than": "melior quam", better than. With a SUPERLATIVE it means "as ... as possible": "quam celerrime", as fast as can be, often with a form of "possum" alongside. On its own in front of an adjective or adverb it is an exclamatory or questioning "how": "quam pulchra!", how beautiful.

There is a fourth "quam" that is not this word at all, and it catches people out constantly: the accusative feminine singular of the relative and interrogative pronoun "qui". If it follows a feminine noun and there is a verb waiting for an object, you are looking at "whom", not "than".

Where "quam" means "than", Latin will often skip it and put the second item in the ablative instead, so "melior pace" says the same thing as "melior quam pax".