PREFIXES AND SUFIXES

PREFIXES AND SUFIXES

We use the affixes (Prefixes and suffixes) to change the meaning of a word or its grammatical form. Prefixes are added to the beginning of the Word and suffixes are added to the end.

Root word

Paul will act in the school play

Root + prefix

I react with fear when I see snakes

Root + suffix

Jim’s actions were unacceptable.

Brad Pitt is an actor

He acted annoyed at me

Root + prefix and suffix

Pablo gets a big reaction when he goes out in public.

Changing the meanings

Learning roots, prefixes and suffixes not only helps us guess word meaning, but it also helps us make grammatically correct sentences. Recognizing the form of the word enables us to see if the word is correct for its function in the sentence. If we look at the examples, we can see that the verb danced needs an adverb to modify it instead of an adjective. Adverbs commonly end in the suffix –ly, so we know the second sentence is correct and the first is not

1. Mary happy danced the music

2. Mary happily danced the music

Prefixes

Are added to the beginning of a word

Prefix	meaning	New word example	Prefix	meaning	New word example
Bi	Two	bilingual	Re	Again	Return
Dis	Not	Disrespect	Un	Not	Unimportant
Il	Not	Illegal	Dec	Ten	Decade
Im	Not	Imperfect	Cent	Hundred	Century
In	Not	Inoperable	after	After	Afterthought
Ir	Not	Irrational	Mid	Middle	Midnight
Mis	Wrong/bad	Misread, misconduct	Sub	Under	Submarine
Non	Not	Nonviolent	Auto	Self	Autobiography
Pre	Before	Preview	Be	Make	belittle
Un	Not	Uncover	Out	Better/ more	Outdo, outshine

Suffixes

Are added to the end of a word and change the grammatical function of a word

Suffix	meaning	Root word	New word example
Ed	Past tense	Talk,	Talked
Ed	Past participle	Need	Needed, followed
Ing	Present participle	Walk	Walking, riding
Ion	Noun	Promote	Promotion
Ly	Adverb	Care	carefully
Al	Adjective	Nature	Natural
Ness	From adjective to noun	Brihgt	Brightness
Ness	From adjective to noun	Dark	Darkness
Ment	From verbs to nouns	Abandon	Abandonment
Like	From  noun to adjective, adverbs	Cat / child	Catlike / childlike

Examples of different changes in the root word:

Noun	Adjective	Adverb	Verb
Love	Lovable, lovely, loving	Lovingly	Loved
Organization, organizer	Organized		Organize, organized
Rebel, rebellion	Rebellious	Rebelliously	Rebel

Prefixes and suffixes together

Here are some examples of words that accepts prefixes and suffixes

Root word	Prefixes and suffixes
Satisfy (v)	Dissatisfied (adj); Insatisfaction (n)
Legible	Illegible (adj); illegibly (adv)

A Word can have two or more noun forms. Thing nouns are things or activities. Person nouns are the people who do the thing or perform the activity

Thing noun	People noun
Building	Builder
Architecture	Architect
Action	Actor
Botany	Botanist
Direction	Director
Psychology	Psychologist
Employment	Employer, employee
Ideology	Idealist
Criticism	Critic
Romance	Romantic

ADJECTIVE FORMS

Verbs in the past participle with ed or in the present participle with ing can be used as adjectives. Look at the noun the adjective modifies. Nouns are doing the action use an adjective with ing on the end. Nouns that receive the action have an adjective that ends in ed, as follows:

ING	ED
That was an exiting book.	I’m excited to read it again.
The movie was boring.	I’m bored.
That situation was embarrassing.	She is embarrassed.
Jean’s voice is annoying.	When I hear his voice, I get annoyed.

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