In Semitic linguistics, the elative is a stage of gradation that can be used to express comparatives or superlatives. The Arabic elative has a special inflection similar to that of colour and defect adjectives but differs in the details. To form an elative, the consonants of the adjective's root are placed in the transfix ’aCCaC, which generally inflects for case but not for gender or number. Furthermore, elatives belong to the diptote declension. E.g. صغير ṣaghīr 'small' derives the elative أصغر ’aṣghar 'smaller', جديد jadīd 'new' derives أجد ’ajadd 'newer', غني ghanī 'rich' derives أغنى ’aghnā 'richer'.