A double superlative is the use of both "most" and the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

"-est" to form the

superlative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

of an

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

English grammar English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, Sentence (linguistics), sentences, and whole texts. Overview This article describes a generalized, present-day Standar ...

. This grammatical practice has been contested throughout the history of the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

language. The presence of more than one superlative marker is widespread across varieties of English around the world and is also found in other languages. Historically, this construction dates back to

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

provides numerous examples of double superlatives in his works.Norma J. Engberg, ''"The Most Unkindest Cut of All"— Shakespeare's Use of Multiple Decrees of Adjective and Adverb Comparison''
Download link
:: "Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose / To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, / And in the calmest and most stillest night, / With all appliances and means to boot, / Deny it to a king?"—Shakespeare, ''

Henry IV, Part Two ''Henry IV, Part 2'' is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by ''Richard II (play), Richard II'' and ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and succeeded by ''He ...

'' Another famous example of a double superlative used in the works of Shakespeare is in the play,

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

Anthony Anthony, also spelled Antony, is a masculine given name derived from the '' Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descenda ...

, in his memorialization of Caesar, describing

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC) was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was reta ...

' stabbing as "the most unkindest cut of all."

References

{{reflist Nonstandard English grammar

See also

References