When the adjective ends in e or s, these letters remain unchanged; as, den stakkels Mand, 'the poor man;' den lille Mand, 'the little man;' det lille Barn, 'the little child;' det stakkels Barn, 'the poor child.'
Adjectives ending in el, en, er, discard the e, when used with the independent article; as, ædel, 'noble,' den ædle Mand, 'the noble man;' moden, 'ripe,' den modne Blomme, 'the ripe plum;' mager, 'lean;' den magre Hest, 'the lean horse.' A similar change is effected when the adjective is used in the plural as a predicate, or absolutely; as, Blommerne ere Modne, 'the plums are ripe;' ædle Mænd, 'noble men.'
Adjectives ending in an unaccentuated syllable double the final consonant; as, slem, or slet, 'bad;' den slemme (slette) Mand, 'the bad man.'
Some adjectives are at once defective and irregular; as, megen, sing., 'much;' flere, pl., 'many;' få, pl., 'few;' små, pl., 'small.'
Adjectives may be used independently in the sense of qualified nouns; as, den Gode, 'the good' (man understood); De Store, 'the great' (people understood).
The comparative degrees are formed as follows:—(1) by the addition to the positive of ere (comp)., est (superl.); (2) by the addition to the positive of re (comp.), st (superl.), when the word ends in e, and in some other cases, more especially when the radical vowel undergoes a change; (3) by the use of mere, 'more,' and mest, 'most,' chiefly in words ending in unaccentuated et, and derived from the past participle of verbs; as—