Prefixes and suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes are sets of letters that are added to the beginning or end of another word. They are not words in their own right and cannot stand on their own in a sentence: if they are printed on their own they have ahyphen before or after them.

Prefixes

Prefixes are added to the beginning of an existing word in order to create a new word with a different meaning. For example:

word	prefix	new word
happy	un-	unhappy
cultural	multi-	multicultural
work	over-	overwork
space	cyber-	cyberspace
market	super-	supermarket

Suffixes

Suffixes are added to the end of an existing word. For example:

word	suffix	new word
child	-ish	childish
work	-er	worker
taste	-less	tasteless
idol	-ize/-ise	idolize/idolise
like	-able	likeable

The addition of a suffix often changes a word from one word class to another. In the table above, the verb like becomes the adjectivelikeable, the noun idol becomes the verbidolize, and the noun child becomes the adjective childish.

Word creation with prefixes and suffixes

Some prefixes and suffixes are part of our living language, in that people regularly use them to create new words for modern products, concepts, or situations. For example:

word	prefix or suffix	new word
security	bio-	biosecurity
clutter	de-	declutter
media	multi-	multimedia
email	-er	emailer

Email is an example of a word that was itself formed from a new prefix, e-, which stands forelectronic. This modern prefix has formed an ever-growing number of other Internet-related words, including e-book, e-cash, e-commerce, and e-tailer.

You can read more about prefixes and suffixes on the OxfordWords blog. Here you will find guidelines, examples, and tips for using prefixes and suffixes correctly.

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