Prefixes vs. Suffixes

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 a hyphen 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:

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:

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 adjective likeable, the noun idol becomes the verb idolize, 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:

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 for electronic . This modern prefix has formed an ever-growing number of
other Internet-related words, including e-book , e-cash , e- commerce, and e-tailer .