Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate option:
This chair is _______ comfortable than that one.
a) little
b) less
c) the least
d) least

Answer 1

Hint: An adjective is a word that expresses an attribute of something. It is the word class that qualifies nouns.
For example- She makes beautiful paintings.

Complete answer:
In the given question, the word in the blank has to be a comparative adjective. A comparative adjective compares one or more attributes of nouns in a sentence. Here, the comfortability of the two chairs is being compared.
Let us thus analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'little', refers to something limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent.
Therefore, option (a.) is incorrect as it is the positive degree of comparison, aka it does not signify any comparison being made in the sentence.

Option (b.), ‘less', refers to (comparative of `little' usually used with mass nouns) a quantifier meaning not as great in amount or degree.
Therefore, option (b.) is correct as it correctly signifies a comparison of the two chairs by pairing up as ‘less comfortable.

Option (c.), ‘the least', refers to a grammatically incorrect phrase when put in the sentence, as there is no need to put the definite article before ‘least’.
Therefore, option (c.) is incorrect.

Option (d.), ‘least', refers to the superlative of `little' that can be used with mass nouns and is usually preceded by `the'; a quantifier meaning smallest in amount or extent or degree.
Therefore, option (d.) is incorrect as we do not need the superlative degree of comparison here as it compares more than two objects.

Note: In this question, it would be helpful for the student to recall the degrees of comparison. There are three degrees of comparison- positive, comparative, and superlative. The positive makes no comparison, the comparative makes a comparison between two objects, and the superlative makes a comparison between more than two objects.