Does 'packed' or 'full' have comparative form? (2025)

Restaurant A is packed. But Restaurant B is more packed.

Mary ate a lot. She is full. But Tom is fuller.

Are the comparative forms correctly used for the two adjectives in the given contexts? Thank you.

Einstein said:

I'm not so sure. In these cases, "packed" and "full" already have extreme meanings. If the restaurant is packed, it already means that there is no room for any more customers. It can't be "more packed".
Again, if Mary is full, it means she can't eat any more. How can Peter be "fuller" than that?

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Absolutely

I think in conversation, you can go beyond packed and full.

This place is packed -- but it's even more packed over at Tibb's, so we'd better eat here.

I'm full.
Oh, yeah? Well ate twice as much as you, so I'm fuller.

Conversational comparisons are not scientific.

Copyright said:

I think in conversation, you can go beyond packed and full.

This place is packed -- but it's even more packed over at Tibb's, so we'd better eat here.

I'm full.
Oh, yeah? Well ate twice as much as you, so I'm fuller.

Conversational comparisons are not scientific.

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Well, OK... very conversational!

Myridon said:

I'm going to agree with Copyright here. Language and logic are often in disagreement. I think people would have different ideas of when they considered a restaurant to be full/packed and after that point there could be more people added. (e.g. almost every table is taken, every table is taken but there are empty seats, every seat is taken but there is room at the bar, there are people in the waiting area, there is a line outside the door, ... etc)

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Well, OK, it's like saying "very unique" or "in the most absolute manner". Something is either unique or not, so "very unique" is illogical, but we do say these things.
However, I don't think I'd say "more packed"; I'd just say "restaurant B is worse!" I'd also say, maybe, "You're full but I'm bursting!" rather than "I'm fuller".

Fuller seems to have a reasonable pedigree. The query fuller_{ADJ} in the BNC returns 538 examples, such as:

"... such as Paisley's preference for fuller integration with the mainland ..."
"Sam's porridge bowl was fuller than usual."
"Royal Air Force records are fuller and more accurate than those of the S.A.S."

However, more packed has just one hit.

It's a little hard to imagine one and the same speaker using packed and more packed, but in the context of a conversation between two people, it sounds OK to me:

A: Looks like Sergio's is packed. Let's try Bob's Bar.
B: On a Saturday night? They'll be even more packed! We might as well wait for a table here.

This makes sense if, for example, Sergio's is a sit-down restaurant and all the tables are currently taken, but at Bob's Bar, not only are all the tables taken, but people are crowded around the bar and standing everywhere, too.

Also, further evidence that words like packed and full can have varying degrees is that we can qualify them with adverbs:

pretty full
completely packed
not that full yet
etc.

Strictly speaking, "full" may be a superlative, but I don't think "packed" is. For example, you could jam a lot of clothes into a small closet and say that it was "packed," but you could probably stuff in a few more items if you really tried. Similarly, a restaurant might be "packed" when every table is occupied, but the staff could probably crowd an extra table somewhere or seat three people at a table meant for two. After they did that, the place would be even more packed.

I'll leave it to the linguistic logicians to debate whether our overcrowded restaurant is now "fuller" than it was. To my ear, "more packed" sounds fine; "fuller" or "more full" don't sound quite wrong, but they don't sound quite right, either.

brian said:

Also, further evidence that words like packed and full can have varying degrees is that we can qualify them with adverbs:

pretty full
completely packed
not that full yet
etc.

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Yes, I'm not disputing that they can have comparatives in general, at least in the case of "fuller", e.g. I want a fuller explanation. It was more in the case of I'm full that I had doubts.

Einstein said:

Yes, I'm not disputing that they can have comparatives in general, at least in the case of "fuller", e.g. I want a fuller explanation. It was more in the case of I'm full that I had doubts.

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Sorry if I was unclear - my examples referred to the usages discussed here. So:

A: Do you want a second helping?
B: No, I'm pretty full. I'll probably just have a piece of fruit for dessert, and that's it.

A: Should we order dessert, or are you stuffed?
B: No, let's order. I'm not that full yet.

It's a bit like filling: logically, something is either filling or not filling, and yet we can say, for example, that a beer or a meal is pretty filling.

Compare this with a true "non-degree" adjective like dead, where you can't really say pretty dead, not that dead, somewhat dead, etc. You're either dead or not, end of story (unless you "flout" this logic on purpose for comedic effect).