The use of ísimo

Question

I was looking for the correct use of ísimo and typed aburridísimo into Spanish Dictionary to translate but received the message "we couldn't find the word you were looking for"? None of the ísimo's appear to be included am I doing something wrong?

Good question - welcome to SD amigo. - ian-hill, Apr 27, 2015

Answer 1

It is used to "create" the regular superlative form of an adjective.

Amable - Amabilísimo ----- Kind - Very Kind

Fácil - Facilísimo ---- Easy - Very easy

Some of this regular superlarive forms have little hints:

Antiguo - Antiquísimo ---- Old - Very old

Sabio - Sapientísimo ---- Wise - Very wise

This happens because the superlative form comes directly fot the old latin language form. In this case adjective and superlative forms of the adjective have evolved in differents ways.

But as almost all in Spanish, there are irregular superlative forms that don´t use the -ísimo form:

Pobre - Paupérrimo ---- Poor - very poor

Célebre - Celebérrimo ---- Famous - very famous

More data about it: RAE

:) - ian-hill, Apr 27, 2015

great answer - Mardle, Apr 27, 2015

Answer 2

You're doing everything right, don't worry about that (but you might like to fill out your profile so that we can help you better, okay?). A few of the more common -ísimo words are included in the SD dictionary (e.g. buenísimo, fortísimo or mismísimo) but in general I wouldn't expect to find such derived words in a dictionary (I couldn't find "aburridísimo" in the DRAE, either). Most of them don't have a nice 1:1 correspondence because English doesn't use this particular structure, so generally such words translate as "very something", "super something, "really something" and so on.

Hello manity, i want to add that buenísimo is not the official superlative of bueno. It is bonísimo. I only used buenísimo but theorically it is not correct ;) - txustaboy, Apr 27, 2015

From what I've seen and read so far on the subject, I consider them "dobletes": http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=F2hiq04ZVD639Jqxbc - Manity, Apr 27, 2015

Gracias amigos. - ian-hill, Apr 27, 2015

Yes, i was looking in the web you said when i realise about it. Buenísimo appears in that paragraph, but doen not appear as "approved" word in the dictionary. It is strange :) - txustaboy, Apr 27, 2015

I agree, it's a strange discrepancy to read that both forms are acceptable and then find only one of them in the dictionary. Thanks for the examples in your answer, I didn't know most of those! :) - Manity, Apr 27, 2015