“度”一词来自拉丁语de-（down）+gradus（一步）。在英语语法中，程度是形容词和副词定性比较中使用的三种形式之一：

1. 肯定形式或基本形式修饰一个主语，但在质量方面没有与其他任何形式进行比较。例如：“我有一只聪明的狗。”这里，形容词“聪明”简单地描述狗是聪明的。
2. 比较级在质量方面比较了一个等级和另一个等级。例句：“我的狗比他的许多品种都聪明。”在这句话中，用形容词“更聪明”修饰的主语优于用基本形式修饰的主语（“聪明的狗”）。
3. “我的狗，荷马，是有史以来最聪明的狗！”这条狗比既聪明又聪明的狗或任何其他狗都聪明，至少据它的主人说。

创造度

对于几乎所有的单音节形容词，以及一些双音节形容词来说，-er加在词根上构成比较级，而-est则构成最高级，然而，情况并非总是如此。具有不规则比较级和最高级形式的常见形容词包括：

• 好的，更好的，最好的
• 坏的，更坏的，最坏的
• 很多，更多
• 少，少，至少

大多数由两个或两个以上音节组成的形容词不接受屈折语素来表示程度，而是依赖单词而不是词形后缀来表示比较级（例如“更具远见”）和最高级（最不情愿）。在某些语言中，形容词和名词的词形变化都可以通过屈折来表示性别、数字和大小写，而英语中形容词只有两种可能的屈折：比较级和最高级。

实例和意见

"Every day was a happy day, and every night was peaceful." (From "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White) "This was a brighter, happier day. We were all together and we were going to stay that way." (From "A Dog Called Perth" by Peter Martin) "This is the happiest day of my life, because today I have fallen in love." (From "The Boleyn Inheritance" by Philippa Gregory)  "The kids marvel at the rolling brown field, where a handful of sheep graze undisturbed by automobiles or shopping centers—a reminder of what seems a simpler, more peaceful place and time." (From "Marin: The Place, the People" by Jane Futcher) "I'm alone in the most peaceful place in the world. Well, maybe not the most peaceful place, as a monastery in the Alps where the monks have all taken a vow of silence and just make cheese all day might be a smidge quieter, but still it's very peaceful." (From "The Book of Jane" by Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt) "Poverty makes you sad as well as wise." (From "The Threepenny Opera" by Bertolt Brecht) "My father went back to the tailoring business, a sadder and wiser man. No, not wiser—just sadder, for his thirteen dollars was gone forever." (From "Groucho and Me" by Groucho Marx)  "For of all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" (From "Maud Muller" by John Greenleaf Whittier) "Imagination is more important than knowledge." (From a 1929 interview with Albert Einstein in The Saturday Evening Post) "It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” (From "A Case of Identity" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

来源

克拉默，托马斯P.等人，“分析英语语法”，第五版。皮尔森，2007