Adjective

Definition:Anadjective, such as "supreme" or "infinite," with a meaning that is generally not capable of beingintensifiedorcompared.See also:*.Absolute Phrase*.GradabilityEtymology:From the Latin, "unrestricted" + "to throw"Examples and Observations:*.VeryUnique?*."In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is auniqueperson, with auniqueperspective on the world, a member of a class of one."(W. H. Auden)*."'Toad Hall,' said the Toad proudly, 'is an eligible self-contained gentleman's residence,very unique,'"(Kenneth Grahame,The Wind in the Willows)*."Switters was pretending to write on an imaginary notepad with an invisible pencil. 'Imay have been fired by the CIA, but I still moonlight for the Grammar Police.Uniqueis a unique word, and Madison Avenue illiterates to the contrary, it is not a pumped-upsynonymforunusual... There's no such thing as 'most unique' or 'very unique' or rather unique'; something is either unique or it isn't, and damn few thingsare. Here!' He mimed tearing a page from the pad and thrust it at her. 'Since English is not your first language, I'm letting you off with a warning ticket. Next time, you can expect a fine. And a black mark on your record.'"(Tom Robbins,Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates. Bantam, 2000)*."Theusagepanel for theAmerican HeritageDictionarydisapproves by 89 percent expressions like 'rather unique' or 'very unique.' The argument is that the word is anabsolute adjectivethat cannot be qualified in any way. Because it goes back to Latinunus, meaning one, the argument goes, and meansonly, as in 'his unique son,' no degrees of uniqueness are possible."The word was adopted in English from French in the 17th century with two meanings, 'being the only one' and 'having no equal.' It was seldom used, treated as a foreign word, until the middle of the 9th century, when it became popular to mean remarkable or unusual or maybe just desirable. This is certainly the most common use of the word today. Many usersof the language, however, are still reluctant to accept the current meaning, perhaps partly because the word has become so popular with advertising copywriters."(Robert M. Gorrell,Watch Your Language!: Mother Tongue and Her Wayward Children. Univ. of Nevada, 1994)*.MorePerfect?*."[I]n aperfectbullfight no men are wounded nor killed and six bulls are put to death in a formal and ordered manner . . .."(Ernest Hemingway,Death in the Afternoon. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932)*."We the People of the United States, in orderto form amore perfectunion . . .."(Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, 1787)*."The man of themost perfectvirtue, the man whom we naturally love and revere the most, is he who joins, to themost perfectcommand of his own original and selfish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility both to the original and sympathetic feelings of others."(Adam Smith,The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759)*."Certain adjectives denote meanings that areabsolutein nature:unique, round, square, perfect, single, double.They can fill both the attributive and predicate slots, but they generally cannot be qualified or compared. We can, of course, say 'almost perfect' or 'nearly square,' but most writers avoid 'more perfect' or 'very perfect.' In the case ofunique, it has come to mean 'rare' or 'unusual,' in which case 'very unique' would be comparable to 'very unusual.' However, given the historical meaning 'one of a kind,' the qualified 'very unique' makes no sense."(Martha Kolln and Robert Funk,Understanding English Grammar. Allyn and Bacon, 1998)*.More Absolute Adjectives"If one wishes to niggle, almost any adjective can be regarded as anabsolute. But common sense tells us to avoid any such binding position. The proper course is to respect the absoluteness of words that become ridiculous ifcomparativeorsuperlativedegrees are attached to them. . .. A list of such words could be quite short:equal, eternal, fatal, final, infinite, perfect, supreme, total, unanimous, unique,and probablyabsoluteitself."(Theodore Bernstein,Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, 1971)*.Types of Absolute Adjectives"[W]e can divide the realm ofabsolute adjectivesinto two types:non-scalar absolutes, likeodd, which are notmodifiable, and what we'll callscalar absolutes, likeperfect, which indicate a bounded portion of a scale."(Lynne Murphy,Lexical Meaning. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010)*.Intensifiers"[T]he dilution of meaning is typical of English. Take the wordvery, for example. InModern English,veryhas no intrinsic meaning; it acts only as anintensifierto addemphasis to the adjective it prece