In case it’s a while since you have been to school (or you just weren’t paying attention when you were there), an adjective is a word that describes a noun. A tall man, a clever woman, a tricky adjective.
You can generally add -ER and -EST to adjectives that are one syllable long: TALLER, SMARTEST. Exceptions are common words like GOOD (you can’t have GOODER) and a few odder ones like DOWF (dull, heavy).
You can’t generally add -ER and -EST to adjectives that have three syllables or more: comfortabler would clearly be wrong, for example.
The interesting group are the two-syllable adjectives where it is not so clear whether you can add -ER and -EST. Would you allow FAMOUSER and FAMOUSEST? HONESTER and HONESTEST? UNIQUER and UNIQUEST?
A standard dictionary will probably not help you here; you really need Collins Official Scrabble Words which shows all the allowable words. For the record, HONEST and UNIQUE do take the -ER and -EST endings, but FAMOUS doesn’t.
By Barry Grossman
Barry is a leading UK Scrabble player and winner of several tournaments. He is the author of Scrabble for Beginners (Chambers), Need to Know Scrabble, Scrabble – Play to Win and The Little Book of Scrabble Trickster. He has also contributed to numerous other books on the subject of words and word-games, has been a series champion of Channel 4’s Countdown, and has written four comedy series for BBC Radio 4. He lives in Hertford.
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