The Grammar of English Grammars, page 698 by Gould Brown

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699

one superlative: _far, farther, farthest, farmost_, or _farthermost; near, nearer, nearest_ or _next; fore, former, foremost_ or _first; hind, hinder, hindmost_ or _hindermost; in, inner, inmost_ or _innermost; out, outer_, or _utter, outmost_ or _utmost, outermost_ or _uttermost; up, upper, upmost_ or _uppermost; low, lower, lowest_ or _lowermost; late, later_ or _latter, latest_ or last.

II. The following five want the positive: [aft, adv.,] _after, aftmost_ or _aftermost_; [forth, adv., formerly furth,[180]] _further, furthest_ or _furthermost; hither, hithermost; nether, nethermost; under, undermost_.

III. The following want the comparative: _front, frontmost; rear, rearmost; head, headmost; end, endmost; top, topmost; bottom, bottommost; mid_ or _middle, midst,[181] midmost_ or _middlemost; north, northmost; south, southmost; east, eastmost; west, westmost; northern, northernmost; southern, southernmost; eastern, easternmost; western, westernmost_.

OBS. 2.--Many of these irregular words are not always used as adjectives, but oftener as nouns, adverbs, or prepositions. The sense in which they are employed, will show to what class they belong. The terms fore and _hind, front_ and _rear, right_ and _left, in_ and _out, high_ and _low, top_ and _bottom, up_ and _down, upper_ and _under, mid_ and after, all but the last pair, are in direct contrast with each other. Many of them are often joined in composition with other words; and some, when used as adjectives of place, are rarely separated from their nouns: as, _in_land, _out_house, _mid_-sea, _after_-ages. Practice is here so capricious, I find it difficult to determine whether the compounding of these terms is proper or not. It is a case about which he that inquires most, may perhaps be most in doubt. If the joining of the words prevents the possibility of mistaking the adjective for a preposition, it prevents also the separate classification of the adjective and the noun, and thus in

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