If I can say, "He is well," meaning, "He is in good health," how do I express that he's in better health, or that he's in the best health ever? "He's weller"? "He's more well"? Those both sound strange to me.
Or do the adjectives "well" and "good" re-converge in the comparative? In other words, do "better" and "best" cover the meaning of the adjective "well" also?
Interestingly, "wellest" and "most well" sound more acceptable to me than do "weller" or "more well." For example, "This is the wellest I've been all year," sounds alright to my ears (I think...).
EDIT:
To clarify: This is grammar question relating to morphology. I am not looking for idiomatic expressions or phrases that are similar in meaning. I am asking this in a very dry, technical sense. For example, for the adjective “good,” the comparative and superlative forms are “better” and “best,” respectively. For “bad,” they are “worse” and “worst.” For “large,” they are “larger” and “largest.” For “tall,” they are “taller” and “tallest.” And so on.
There is an adjective “well,” which means “in a state of good health,” as in the sentence, “I had the flu last week, but thankfully I am well now.” (I am not talking about the adverb “well.”) So, for this adjective “well,” what are the forms that would replace the “???” below?
ADJECTIVES:
[plain form], [comparative form], [superlative form]
good, better, best
bad, worse, worst
large, larger, largest
tall, taller, tallest
far, farther, farthest
ugly, uglier, ugliest
red, redder, reddest
difficult, more difficult, most difficult
tasty, tastier, tastiest
awful, more awful, most awful
easy, easier, easiest
well, ???, ???
Or: Use the comparative form of the adjective “well” to fill in the blank:
“I have not yet fully recovered from my illness, but I think I will be well within a few days. I’ve improjeved a great deal this past week. For example, I feel a lot _____ today than I did yesterday.”
There is the word "better," as in, "I had a horrible cold last week, but I'm better now" or "I'll kiss it and make it better" or "I feel better than I did yesterday, but I'm not 100% back to normal yet." But in a morphological sense, there is no corresponding superlative form for this word "better," and there isn't even really a plain form of it -- it exists as a sort of defective adjective (distinct from "good/better/best") whose meaning is always comparative. This defective adjective "better" can mean "fully recovered" or merely "in an improved state compared to before."
(Note: I mean "defective" the way the word is used in the context of grammar, describing a word that lacks the full complement of forms that are typical of words in its class. For example, the defective verb "beware" exists only in the imperative and infinitive. You can say "Beware of the dog!" or "I will make sure to beware of the dog," but you cannot say, "He bewares of the dog" or "They were bewaring of the dog." The verb "beware" does not have a present tense, past tense, past participle, or present participle/gerund.)
