To say something is the biggest, the most beautiful, or the most expensive, Dutch adds -st to the adjective: groot → grootst, mooi → mooist. As with the comparative, the -st ending works for almost every adjective, so you rarely need a "most"-style two-word form. The wrinkles are all in how the superlative gets used: it inflects differently as an attribute than as a predicate, and the predicate form produces a famously confusing double het (het is hier het mooist) that catches every learner off guard.
Forming the superlative: add -st
Take the adjective and add -st. Unlike the comparative, the -st ending rarely changes the spelling of the stem, because st keeps the syllable closed — so a long vowel that was already doubled stays doubled.
| Adjective | Comparative | Superlative |
|---|---|---|
| klein | kleiner | kleinst |
| groot | groter | grootst |
| mooi | mooier | mooist |
| dik | dikker | dikst |
| hoog | hoger | hoogst |
| duur | duurder | duurst |
Notice that groot keeps its double oo in the superlative (grootst) even though it lost one in the comparative (groter). That's the open/closed-syllable rule again: -st closes the syllable, so the long vowel stays doubled, while -er opened it and forced a single o. The comparative and superlative of the same word can therefore look quite different: groot → groter → grootst.
De Mont Blanc is de hoogste berg van de Alpen.
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps.
Dit is verreweg de duurste optie.
This is by far the most expensive option.
Attributive: de/het … -ste
In front of a noun, the superlative takes the usual attributive -e (giving -ste) and is almost always preceded by the definite article de or het — because "the biggest X" is inherently definite.
Amsterdam is de grootste stad van Nederland.
Amsterdam is the largest city in the Netherlands.
Dat was het mooiste huis dat we hebben bezichtigd.
That was the nicest house we viewed.
Hij koos voor de goedkoopste vlucht met een tussenstop.
He chose the cheapest flight, with a layover.
The article follows the noun's gender, just like any de/het word: de grootste stad (de-word) but het mooiste huis (het-word). The superlative ending -ste itself never changes for gender — only the article does.
Predicate: the double het (het … -st)
This is the part that mystifies learners. When the superlative is a predicate — saying how something is, not which noun it modifies — Dutch typically uses the bare het + adjective + -st pattern, with no noun after it. The result is a sentence with two het's in a row: a grammatical het ("it") as subject, and a second het belonging to the superlative.
Hier is het het mooist.
It's nicest here. — literally 'here is it the nicest'; the two het's are not a typo.
In de zomer is het strand het rustigst in de ochtend.
In summer the beach is quietest in the morning.
's Avonds is het verkeer het drukst.
In the evening the traffic is busiest.
Why two het's? The first het is the ordinary subject pronoun (or the subject noun's slot), and the second het is a fixed part of the predicate superlative construction — think of it as "the most" with no following noun. You can read het mooist as "at its most beautiful." When the subject is itself het ("it"), the two simply collide: het (it) + het mooist (the most beautiful) = het is het mooist. It looks like a mistake; it's correct and required.
The op zijn / op het … -st variant
There is also a more idiomatic predicate option, op zijn …-st (or op het …-st), meaning "at its most …". It's common with weather, scenery, and "showing off" contexts, and it often carries a flavour of "at its best/peak."
De stad is op zijn mooist in het voorjaar.
The city is at its most beautiful in spring.
Op zijn best haalt de auto 180 kilometer per uur.
At its best, the car reaches 180 km/h.
When to use meest instead of -st
A few adjectives don't take the -st suffix comfortably — chiefly those already ending in an s-sound, or long, foreign-looking words where stacking -st sounds clumsy. For these, Dutch uses meest ("most") + the adjective, the two-word strategy English uses everywhere.
| Adjective | Superlative with meest |
|---|---|
| complex | de meest complexe situatie |
| interessant (often) | de meest interessante film |
| fris | de meest frisse smaak |
Dit was de meest complexe zaak van het jaar.
This was the most complex case of the year.
We zagen gisteren de meest interessante film van het festival.
We saw the most interesting film of the festival yesterday.
Note that interessant accepts both interessantst and de meest interessante; the meest form is increasingly common and never wrong. But ordinary short adjectives sound strange with meest — meest groot is not idiomatic; say grootst.
How this differs from English
English builds superlatives with -est for short words and the most for long ones — a split that maps loosely onto Dutch -st vs meest, except Dutch leans far harder toward the suffix. The real shock is the predicate form. English says simply "it's nicest here," with no extra article. Dutch inserts a het into the predicate (het is hier het mooist), which has no English counterpart at all and reads, at first, like a doubled-up error. There is no shortcut for this one — you have to internalise that the predicate superlative carries its own het.
Common Mistakes
❌ Dit is de meest groot stad.
Wrong — short adjectives take -st, not 'meest': grootste.
✅ Dit is de grootste stad.
This is the biggest city.
❌ Hier is het mooist.
Incomplete — the predicate superlative needs its own 'het': het is hier het mooist.
✅ Hier is het het mooist.
It's nicest here.
❌ Amsterdam is de grootst stad.
Wrong — attributive superlatives take -e: grootste.
✅ Amsterdam is de grootste stad.
Amsterdam is the biggest city.
❌ de meest dure optie
Awkward — 'duur' takes the suffix: duurste.
✅ de duurste optie
The most expensive option.
❌ het mooiste huis dat we hebben gezien (as a predicate: 'het is mooiste')
Wrong — predicate form is 'het mooist', not 'mooiste', without a following noun.
✅ Van alle huizen is dit het mooist.
Of all the houses, this one is the nicest.
Key Takeaways
- Form the superlative by adding -st: groot → grootst, mooi → mooist — for almost all adjectives.
- The -st keeps the syllable closed, so a long vowel stays doubled: grootst (contrast the comparative groter).
- Attributive: de/het
- adjective + -ste, with the article matching gender (de grootste stad, het mooiste huis).
- Predicate: the bare het …-st form, producing a double het when the subject is also het (het is hier het mooist). The idiomatic op zijn …-st means "at its most …".
- Use meest only for adjectives that resist the suffix (de meest complexe situatie); ordinary short adjectives never take meest.
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- The Comparative (-er)A2 — How Dutch forms the comparative with -er, why -r adjectives insert -d- (duurder), and why 'than' must be dan, not als, after a comparative.
- Irregular Comparison: Goed, Veel, GraagB1 — The suppletive comparatives and superlatives — goed→beter→best, veel→meer→meest, weinig→minder→minst — plus graag→liever→liefst, Dutch's everyday way to say 'rather' and 'prefer'.
- The -e Rule and Its One Big ExceptionA1 — Before a noun, a Dutch adjective takes -e — always — with exactly one exception: a singular het-word introduced by een or no article keeps the adjective bare (een mooi huis). Master that one cell and the whole rule is yours.
- Open and Closed Syllables: The Doubling RuleA1 — The keystone of Dutch spelling — how open vs closed syllables control vowel-letter and consonant-letter doubling, the rule behind nearly every plural, conjugation, and diminutive.
- Predicate vs Attributive AdjectivesA1 — An adjective before a noun (attributive) may take -e; an adjective after a linking verb like zijn (predicate) never does. Recognising which slot you're in tells you instantly whether the -e rule even applies — and the predicate slot behaves exactly like English.