In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context. For example, if Adam is 45, Bess is 35, and Chris is 25, Adam is the oldest of the three, because his age transcends those of Bess and Chris in one direction, while Chris is the youngest, because his age transcends those of Adam and Bess in the other direction. If Dan, who is 50, and Edna, who is 20, join the group, Dan now becomes the oldest and Edna the youngest.Some prescriptive grammars hold that, when comparing only two entities, use of the superlative is ungrammatical: if the group were to contain only Adam and Bess, Adam would be older, while Bess would be younger and it would be ungrammatcal to say that Adam was the oldest. The superlative degree used in reference to sets of two or fewer are found, however, in writing and speech. In an offer for auction to the "highest bidder" in which only one bid was received, for example, no rule of English grammar would negate the sale.
Some rigid, traditional grammarians object to the use of the superlative or comparative with words such as "full," "complete," "unique" or "empty," which by definition already denote either a totality, an absence, or an absolute. However, such words are routinely and frequently qualified in contemporary speech and writing. This type of usage conveys more of a figurative than a literal meaning, since in a strictly literal sense, something cannot be more or less unique or empty to a greater or lesser degree. For example, in the phrase "most complete selection of wines in the Midwest," "most complete" doesn't mean "closest to having all elements represented," it merely connotes a well-rounded, relatively extensive selection. Browsing in some of the best-known search-engines for "more complete" or "most complete" would establish the frequency of this usage by many millions of examples.
