Learn English – Which one is more appropriate to use: More or most

grammar

Which is more appropriate to use more or most in the sentence: Some accounts claim that rattle snake was (more or most) poisonous than any other snake that lives on Earth.

Best Answer

The 'most' is the superlative degree.

So it can't be used with 'than' which follows 'more' (the comparative degree).

Have a look at this: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=most+poisonous+than%2C+more+poisonous+than&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmore%20poisonous%20than%3B%2Cc0.

It shows the only usage of 'more ... than'.

The sentence with 'most' can be like this:

"Some accounts claim that rattle snake was the most poisonous snake on Earth."