photo by Tall Chris
There are some patterns in Spanish which are used to indicate that something is either bigger, larger or excessive. Hence, they intensify the meaning of the words in some way. Three examples of such patterns are the prefix “sobre-” and the sufixes “-ísimo” and “-ote“.
1. sobre-
“sobre-” means over or very . For example
- the verb “abundar” means “to be plenty”. Sobreabundar means “to be very abundant”.
Some other common examples are
- cargar to load ————-> sobrecargar to overload
- (la) dosis dose —————–> (la) sobredosis overdose
- (el) peso weight ———–> (el) sobrepeso overweight
2. –ísimo
–ísimo intensifies the meaning of an adjective. For example;
- caro/-a means expensive. carísimo/carísima means very expensive.
As you may understand from the example sentence, the ending of this intensifier should be changed according to the noun it refers to. That means, it should agree with the article of the noun. So, you should say
- un coche carísimo (a very expensive car) and unos coches carísimos (some very expensive cars), since the word coche is masculine.
but,
- una bolsa carísima ( a very expensive bag) and unas bolsas carísimas (some very expensive bags), because the word bolsa is feminine.
Some other well-known examples are
- alto tall ———————–> altísimo very tall
- largo long ——————–> larguísimo very long
- feo ugly ———————–> feísimo very ugly
- rico rich ———————–>riquísimo very rich
3. -ote
This one is used to express that something is big or large. Some examples are
- (el) libro book ——————–> (el) librote big book
- (el) animal ————————-> (el) animalote big animal
- (el) árbol —————————–> (el) arbolote big tree
