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Comparative

Usage

The comparative🇮🇸 miðstig form of an adjective in Icelandic is, as the name suggests, used in comparisons along with the conjunction en “than”:

Ég er sterkari en þú.
Kvikmyndin er skemmtilegri en bókin.
Hnífurinn er stærri en gaffallinn.
Mín peysa er grænni en þín.

The comparative only exists in the weak inflection. But in fact, the inflection of comparative adjectives is even simpler than the standard weak inflection.

Indeclinable adjectives are used with the adverb meira instead of an ending:

Íslenska er meira spennandi en enska!

note

Meira is only used with adjectives that are not inflected at all, such as hissa, sammála, hugsi and all adjectives that end in -andi, such as spennandi and þreytandi. For all other adjectives, the comparative inflection is used, regardless of how long the adjective is.

Units and measurements in comparisons

In comparisons, it’s often helpful to specify by how much something is for example bigger, stronger or faster than something else. This is particularly obvious with units of measurement or time. This information is given in the dative case:

Pabbi er þremur sentimetrum hærri en mamma.
Tveimur dögum seinna fórum við heim.

Certain adverbs such as mikið can also be used in this way, and are therefore also in the dative:

Þessi nýja bók er miklu skemmtilegri en sú gamla.

þvíþví

When linking together multiple phrases that contain comparatives, Icelandic uses því (in the same way English uses “the”). For example:

Því ódýrara, því betra.
Því meira sem hann borðaði, því feitari varð hann.

Note that because því is an adverb in this context, it causes inversion of the subject and the verb if present.

Formation

The endings in the comparative are greatly simplified compared to the positive and superlative. 😅

Regardless which set of rules the adjective follows below to form its comparative, the final vowel is always -i in all cases for the masculine and feminine singular, and all genders in the plural. In the neuter singular, the final vowel is -a in all cases:

SingularPlural
MasculineFeminineNeuterMasculineFeminineNeuter
Nom.sterkaristerkarasterkari
Acc.
Dat.
Gen.

-ari

The majority of adjectives form their comparative with the suffix -ari (-ara in the neuter singular), regardless of which pattern they follow in the positive.

Masc. and fem. singular
Plural (all genders)
Neuter singular
sterkur
þykkur
auðveldur
sterkari
þykkari
auðveldari
sterkara
þykkara
auðveldara
dýr
laus
dýrari
lausari
dýrara
lausara
opinn
hávaxinn
opnari
hávaxnari
opnara
hávaxnara

-ll/nn

Adjectives ending in -ll and -nn both follow a similar pattern:

Masc. and fem. singular
Plural (all genders)
Neuter singular
háll
heill
vinsæll
hálli
heilli
vinsælli
hálla
heilla
vinsælla
brúnn
fínn
grænn
brúnni
fínni
grænni
brúnna
fínna
grænna

-legur and -ugur

All adjectives ending in -legur and -ugur follow this pattern:

Masc. and fem. singular
Plural (all genders)
Neuter singular
skemmtilegur
leiðinlegur
asnalegur
skemmtilegri
leiðinlegri
asnalegri
skemmtilegra
leiðinlegra
asnalegra
auðugur
öflugur
auðugri
öflugri
auðugra
öflugra

-rr-

A small group of adjectives with these properties follow a slightly different pattern:

  • 1️⃣ Single-syllable (or formed from single-syllable adjectives e.g. gegn-sær),
  • ®️ Ending in -r,
  • 🔺 With an accented vowel or æ in their stem.

All of the adjectives in this group are ones that lose their -r ending in the feminine and neuter in the positive (e.g. blár – blá – blátt but not dýr – dýr – dýrt).

Masc. and fem. singular
Plural (all genders)
Neuter singular
blár
grár
mjór
trúr
nýr
hlýr
gegnsær
blárri
grárri
mjórri
trúrri
rri
hlýrri
gegnsærri
blárra
grárra
mjórra
trúrra
rra
hlýrra
gegnsærra

Vowel changes and irregular comparatives

Some adjectives such as langur and ungur get the I-shift in their comparative forms, becoming lengri and yngri respectively. Others are completely irregular, such as góður, whose comparative form is betri.

As these variations also affect the superlative, they are dealt with together in Irregular comparatives and superlatives.