"Superlative degree" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... superlative degree of the adjective for the comparative; as "He is the richest of the two" for "He is the richer of the two." Other mistakes often made in this connection are (1) Using the double comparative and superlative; as, "These apples are much more preferable." ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... oracle that awarded to Socrates the superlative degree of wisdom, gave to Sophocles the positive, and to Euripides ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... few false notes in the next, strike the wrong bass note here and there, mumble trills and overlook the correct phrasing entirely, with the idea that you are doing the same thing you have seen some great virtuoso do, is simply the superlative degree of carelessness. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... plenty of words made; but in these times they are all nouns, and what we want are adverbs—'words that qualify verbs, participles, adjectives, and other adverbs.' We could get along well enough with the old adjectives, badly as the superlative degree of some of them has been used. They are capable of being qualified when they become too weak—or, rather, when our taste becomes too strong—just as old ladies qualify their tea when they begin to find the old excitement insufficient. But even this must be done with reason, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... literary tricks, grows upon the artist, and becomes singularly offensive to the man of taste, it must always be remembered that, with Macaulay, the praise or blame is usually just and true; he is very rarely grossly unfair and wrong, as Carlyle so often is; and if Macaulay resorts too often to the superlative degree, he is usually entitled to use the comparative ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... South Africa and Germany, by whom the standards of points have been perfected. Type has been enhanced, the head with the small ornamental ears that now prevail is more classical; and scientific cultivation and careful selection of typical breeding stock have achieved what may be considered the superlative degree of quality, without appreciable loss of stamina, ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... face lighted by fine eyes; classically though superficially educated; gifted in conversation, witty, brilliant, adoring talent, but cherishing all the prejudices of the old noblesse—she represented in a superlative degree the passion for esprit which lent such exceptional brilliancy to the social life of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... him to Schiller, whose splendor of imagery and impassioned rhetoric were the very gifts which he himself in a superlative degree possessed. The breath of political and religious liberalism which pervades the writings of the German poet was also highly congenial to Tegner, and last, but not least, they were both light-loving, beauty-worshipping ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... or clause, defined; agreement of verb and subject; compound; relative pronoun as, of whole composition; statement of, in composition. Subject matter of letters. Subjunctive mode. Such, Glossary. Summarizing word, use of; punctuation of, (Sec.127). Superlative degree; misuse in comparing only two things. Suspect, for expect. Syllables, division of words into, (Sec.139). Synonyoms, ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... three forms known as degrees of comparison. The positive degree indicates the simple quality of the object without reference to any other. The comparative degree indicates that two objects are compared (Stanley is the older brother). The superlative degree indicates that three or more objects are compared (Stanley is the oldest child in the family) or that the speaker feels great interest or emotion (A most excellent record). Ordinarily er or r is added to the ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... Records, Part II. p. 983, as Josephus could not but know very well; but that he was esteemed as very ancient by them, and that they knew they had been first of all denominated "Danai" from this very ancient king Danaus. Nor does this superlative degree always imply the "most ancient" of all without exception, but is sometimes to be rendered "very ancient" only, as is the case in the like superlative ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... number. Courage, cunning and cruelty were considered by them to be the most important qualifications of a bona-fide bucanier, and they soon found that these were possessed by Rowland, in a most superlative degree, and this added to the influence of his talents and early education, caused him to rise rapidly to a station of command among them. As it was his motto 'to make hay while the sun shines,' he sailed as soon ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... of the life, and the source of the life, and the fundamentals of the life continue unchanged. Everything is as it was, only in the superlative degree. To other men the narrow plain on which their low-lying lives are placed is rimmed by the jagged, forbidding white peaks. It is cold and dreary on these icy summits where no creature can live. Perhaps there is land on the other side; who knows? The pale barrier separates all here from all ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his Fate did moan, With joyful Hearts, restor'd him to his Throne; Who then his Father's Murtherers destroy'd, And a long, happy, peaceful Reign enjoy'd. Belov'd of all, for merciful was He, Like God, in the Superlative Degree. The Jewish Sects he did not seek to quell, Yet Laws he made they might no more rebell: Wisely about them made of Laws a Fence, Yet kind, would not oppress their Conscience. The Pharisee, a very numerous Sect, Above the rest were in their Worship ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... upon the casting of Medusa, that is, the woman twisted in a heap beneath the feet of Perseus. It was an extremely difficult task, and I was anxious to observe all the niceties of art which I had learned, so as not to lapse into some error. The first cast I took in my furnace succeeded in the superlative degree, and was so clean that my friends thought I should not need to retouch it. It is true that certain Germans and Frenchmen, who vaunt the possession of marvellous secrets, pretend that they can cast bronzes without retouching them; but this is really nonsense, because the bronze, when it has first ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... know what it's like. It's really the art of imposing one's will upon someone else's, of making that other person see things as you want them to see them—not as they really are. It's the power of deception carried to a superlative degree. And when that power is exhausted, the ticket may be said to have expired—and the prisoner returns to the dungeon. Sometimes he takes the other person with him. Sometimes he ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... position of the adjective is after the noun. Sometimes it precedes it, and in that case it changes the initial of the noun to the second state, unless the adjective is in the comparative or superlative degree, when the initial is unchanged. The adjectives that most commonly precede the noun are drôg, evil; hen, old; lên, full; hager, ugly; fals, false; cam, crooked. Mer, great, may come before ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... cannot, easily believe this, viz. that so little of the Tincture will transmute so great a quantity of Lead into Gold. But he, answered; what I say is true. In, mean, while, I, giving him great; thanks, inclosed my diminished and in the Superlative degree concentrated Treasure, in my own Casket, saying: To morrow I will make this Tryal; and give no notice to any Man thereof, as long as I live. Not so, not so, answered; he, but all things, which tend to the Glory of God Omnipotent, ought by us, singularly to be ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... sentence in an advertisement frequently conveys the meaning that in ordinary writing would be expanded into a long descriptive essay. The principles of composition-writing apply to advertising in the superlative degree. Above all things else, an advertisement must be clear, coherent, and forceful. In addition to these ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... advertisement, as most nostrum "ads" are, because, unfortunately, the art of the liar is best expressed in the superlative degree. His word-pictures are therefore more lurid, more diversified, more romantic. But when they are investigated and the facts brought to light the advertisement falls to pieces. For example, compare the actual facts relative ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... unceasing and joyful activity in that bright and pure morning of intellectual curiosity, which neither the dull tumultuous needs of life nor the mists of spiritual misgiving have yet come up to make dim. Of this temperament was Turgot in a superlative degree, and its fire never abated in him from college days, down to the last hours while he lay racked ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... magnetism in a superlative degree in spite of her deliberate aloofness, Clavering had, of course, been conscious from the first. Had not every male first-nighter been conscious of it? There was a surfeit of beauty in New York. A stranger, even if invested with ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the path towards realization. One comes back to the before-mentioned analogy of flying. We had been assured over and over again, on the highest authority, that it was an idle dream. When we wanted to express the superlative degree of the impossible, we said "I can no more do it than I can fly." But the irrepressible spirit of man was not to be daunted by a priori demonstrations of impossibility. One day there came the rumour that the thing had been ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... a transcendentalist is after all to be only a sensible, unprejudiced man, open to conviction at all times, and spiritually-minded. I can well understand that, when you condemn transcendentalism, you object not to the principle, but to the practice, in the superlative degree, of that principle. Transcendentalism is but an abstract mode of considering morals, philosophy, religion; an application of the principles of abstract science to these subjects. All metaphysicians are transcendentalists, and every one is transcendental ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various |
