[…] when he isbeſt, he is a little worſe then a man, and when he is worſt, he is little better than a beaſt:
1667,John Milton, “Book V”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC, line19:
Swinging in the backyard Pull up in your fast car whistling my name Open up a beer And you say get over here and play a video game […] I say you thebestest Lean in for a big kiss, put his favorite perfume on Go play your video game
Policing the relationship between government and business in a free society is difficult.[…]Governments have to find thebest people to fill important jobs: there is a limited supply of people who understand the financial system, for example. But governments must also remember that businesses are self-interested actors who will try to rig the system for their own benefit.
2025 July 19, Pacifik, “Country’s Calling”, inWonderfool, performed by Pacifik:
There's no common goal There's no common feeling To have thebest house in the worst city
Thecomparativegooder andsuperlativegoodest derived from thepositivegood are nonstandard. In informal (often jocular) contexts,best may be inflected further and given the comparativebester and the superlativebestest; these forms are also nonstandard.
A popular aphorism says itbest: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
1667,John Milton, “Book IX”, inParadise Lost.[…], London:[…] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker[…];[a]nd by Robert Boulter[…];[a]nd Matthias Walker,[…],→OCLC; republished asParadise Lost in Ten Books:[…], London: Basil Montagu Pickering[…],1873,→OCLC, lines867–869:
Out of my ſight, thou Serpent, that namebeſt Befits thee with him leagu'd, thy ſelf as falſe And hateful;
At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy ; and what she likedbest andbest understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.
To the most advantage; with the most success, cause, profit, benefit, or propriety.
You'd best save a backup copy, just in case the morons lose the one that you sent and then try to act like you never sent one.
(uncountable, often used after possessive determiners) The supreme effort one can make, or has made.
I did mybest.
My personalbest in that race is eighteen minutes, four seconds.
2011 September 28, Tom Rostance, “Arsenal 2 - 1 Olympiakos”, inBBC Sport[1]:
Home defender Per Mertesacker had to be at hisbest to stop a dangerous cross from Vassilis Torossidis reaching Djebbour, but moments later Arsenal doubled their lead through Santos.
1944 July and August, Charles E. Lee, “The "City of Truro"”, inRailway Magazine, pages201–202:
The Norddeutscher Lloyd steamshipKronprinz Wilhelm left New York on May 3 [1904], at 3.10 p.m. and reached Plymouth Sound on May 9 at 8 a.m. This was then a very fast crossing of the Atlantic, but it was not the record. The same ship had held the "Blue Riband" in 1902, but had been slightlybested by theKaiser Wilhelm II, a larger vessel of the same line, in 1903, and that stood as the record until the Cunard Line secured the honours in 1909 with theMauretania and held them for an unbroken period of 20 years.
2010, T. William Phillips,Restless Heart, page16:
"You did not win because I was sloppy. Youbested me, Uncle. I've never seen you fight like that before.”
Although it is sometimes considered an adverb,best is virtually synonymous withshould in "We best be going," andought to in "We best go."Should andought are auxiliary verbs.
