AFFIXES: The

building blocks of
English

Just for fun!

Lets suffer from

verbomania!
insane fondness for
animals
morbid craving for
poisons
obsession with stampcollecting
craze for starting fires

zoomania
toxicomania
stampomania
pyromania

obsession with music

musomania

irrational craving for water

hydromania

craze for flowers

florimania

Are you afraid of words?

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

Fear of long words

Lets suffer from

phronemophobia!
fear of heights

acro/altophobia

fear of numbers

arithmophobia

fear of being alone or of

oneself
fear of books

autophobia

fear of ugliness

cacophobia

fear of meat

carnophobia

fear of time

chronophobia

bibliophobia

Lets suffer from

phronemophobia!
fear of computers

cyberphobia

fear of dentists

dentophobia

fear of confined spaces

claustrophobia

fear of sexual love

erotophobia

fear of hearing good news

euphobia

fear of nudity

gymnophobia

fear of words

logophobia

What is an affix?
An affix is a word element aprefix, suffix, orinfix - that
can be attached to
abaseorroot to form a new
word.
Noun: affixation
Adjectives:affixableandaffixal

What is an affix?
Affixes are of two types:
prefixes, occurring before the
stem of a word, andsuffixes,
occurring after.
English does not have affixes in
large numbers--about fifty
common prefixes and
somewhat fewer common
suffixes.

What is an affix?
Prefixes
includedis-,
mal-,
ex-,andsemi-,
as
indisinterested,
malformed,
ex-husband,andsemidetached. Suffixes includeship, -ness, -ette, and-let, as
inhardship,
goodness,
kitchenette,andbooklet.

What is an affix?
Clusters of affixes can be used
to build up complex words:
nation, national, nationalize,
nationalization
denationalization,
antidenationalization

Some Common Greek and Latin

roots:
Root
(source)
aster, astr
(G)
audi (L)
bene (L)

Meanin
English words
g
star

astronomy, astrology

to hear
good,
well

audible, auditorium
benefit, benevolent

biology,
bio (G)
life
autobiography
dic, dict (L) to speak dictionary, dictator

Some Common Greek and Latin

roots:
Root
(source)

Meanin
English words
g

fer (L)

to carry

fix (L)

to fasten fix, suffix, affix

geo (G)

earth

log, logue
(G)

word,
monolog(ue),
thought, astrology, biology,
speech neologism

luc (L)

light

transfer, referral
geography, geology

lucid, translucent

Some Common Greek and Latin

roots:
Root
(source)

Meanin
English words
g

manu (L)

hand

meter,
metr (G)

measure metric, thermometer

manual, manuscript

path (G)

feeling

pathetic, sympathy,
empathy

phys (G)

body,
nature

physical, physics

scrib, script
to write
(L)

scribble, manuscript

Some Common Greek and Latin

roots:
Root
(source)
tele (G)

Meanin
English words
g
far off
telephone, television
territory,
ter, terr (L) earth
extraterrestrial
vacant, vacuum,
vac (L)
empty
evacuate
verb (L)
word
verbal, verbose
video, vision,
vid, vis (L) to see
television

What is an affix?
Over half the words in English
are there because of processes
of this kind (i.e., affixation).
And this is one reason why
children's vocabulary grows so
quickly once they learn some
prefixes and suffixes."
(David Crystal,How Language
Works. Overlook, 2006)

Prefixes showing quantity

Meaning Prefixes in English Words
half

semiannual,hemisphere

one

unicycle,monarchy,monorail

two

binary,bimonthly,dilemma,dic
hotomy

hundred

century,centimeter,hectoliter

thousand millimeter,kilometer

Prefixes showing negation

without, no, not
asexual,anonymous,illegal,imm
oral,
invalid,irreverent,unskilled
not, absence of,
nonbreakable,antacid,antipathy,
opposing, against
contradict
opposite to,
counterclockwise,counterweight
complement to
do the opposite of, dehorn,devitalize,devalue
remove, reduce
do the opposite of, disestablish,disarm
deprive of
wrongly, bad
misjudge,misdeed

Prefixes showing direction or position

above, over supervise,supererogatory
across, over transport,translate
below, under infrasonic,infrastructure,subterranea
n,
hypodermic
in front of
proceed,prefix
behind
recede
out of
erupt,explicit,ecstasy
into
injection,immerse,encourage,empow
er
around
circumnavigate,perimeter
with
coexist,colloquy,communicate,conse
quence,
correspond,sympathy,synchronize

Suffixes, on the other hand,

modify the meaning of a word and
frequently determine its function
within a sentence.
Take the
nounnation, for example. With
suffixes, the word becomes the
adjectivenational,
the
adverbnationally,
and
the
verbnationalize.

Typicalnoun suffixesare -ence,

-ance, -or, -er, -ment, -list, -ism,
-ship, -ency, -sion, -tion, -ness,
-hood, -dom.
Typicalverb suffixesare
-ify, -ize, -ate.

-en,

Typicaladjective
suffixesare
-able, -ible, -al, -tial, -tic, -ly, -ful,
-ous, -tive, -less, -ish, -ulent.

Theadverb
suffixis
-ly
(although not all words that end
in-lyare adverbslike friendly).

The infix
A word element (a type
ofaffix) that can be inserted
within the base form of a word
(rather than at its beginning or
end) to create a new word or
intensify meaning. The
process of inserting an infix is
calledinfixation.

The infix
Examples and observations:
"Abso-Bleedin'-Lutely"
(Quincy Jones, song in the
filmWalk, Don't Run, 1966)

Absobloodylutely

The infix
Examples and observations:
Infixes work in fortuitous or
aggravating circumstances by
emotionally aroused English
speakers:

Hallebloodylujah!. . . In the
movieWish You Were Here, the main
character expresses her aggravation
(at another character's trying to
contact her) by screamingTell him
I've gone to Singabloodypore!

The infix
Examples and observations:
"English has no trueinfixes,
but theplural suffix-sbehaves
something like an infix in
unusual plurals likepassersbyandmothers-in-law."
(R.L. Trask,The Penguin
Dictionary of English Grammar,
2000)

The infix
Examples and observations:

Fanflamingtastic
Unbeflippinglievable
Fanfrigginstastic
Absobloominlutely

Exercises - Affixes

A man's useless
tuxedo could be
__________ into a
woman's smart
town suit.
(form)

Exercises - Affixes

In Garner's case, the

formal elements often
go unnoticed because
they are __________
and made almost
invisible by the
emotional power and
urgency of the story.
(merge)

Exercises - Affixes

Eduardo Duhalde,
Argentina's caretaker
president, today said
that he would __________
the peso as he prepared
to unveil a high-risk
plan to end the
country's economic
turmoil. (value)

Exercises - Affixes

The Maya priests

discovered,
however, that they
had slightly
__________ the
average synodic
period of Venus.
(estimate)

Exercises - Affixes

Of themselves, of
course, the rules
are normative,
and their validity
is thus __________
by issues of fact.
(affect)

Exercises - Affixes

There remained a
distinctive
philosophy of
liberalism which
could __________ the
Liberals from other
political parties.
(differ)

Exercises - Affixes

In a black leather
notebook
__________ with a
metal clasp, he
wrote: Oswestry
July 18th 1829...
(fast)

Exercises - Affixes

The only miracle left in

the nuclear dream is that
more people have not
__________ to the fact that
nuclear power is
economically - and
increasingly, in that it
takes much-needed funds
away from renewables
and efficiency - ethically,
redundant. (wake)

Exercises - Affixes

Frederick's reforms,
however, __________
a major flaw in the
progressive
infatuation with
scientific
management.
(example)

Exercises - Affixes

Drugs which are

rapidly inactivated
have advantages,
because the risk of
__________ is
minimized and there
are no cumulative
effects. (dosage)

Exercises - Affixes

Sections of the population

have also combined their
own popular nationalism
and religion with aspects
of the clerical
interpretation already
invested in the law,
particularly in the
__________ movement of
the early 1980s.
(abortion)

Exercises - Affixes

Any technical term used

here, whether from
__________ or
anthropology, is
explained in the body of
the text, and the index
will enable the reader to
refer back to these
explanation. (Marx)

Exercises - Affixes

The best cure in

such a case is an
__________ of the
law by statute.
(alter)

Exercises - Affixes

He not only uses

__________ images to
achieve rhythm but,
even more subtly,
uses __________ ideas
for the same purpose.
(repeat)

Exercises - Affixes

The integral involves

two __________
functions.
(continue)

Exercises - Affixes

It is remarkable that a
cell as overtly dull
and __________ as the
fertilized egg can give
rise to such varied
and complex forms.
(structure)

Exercises - Affixes

Even in the
university centers,
perhaps only 50 per
cent of cases are
notified, while
reporting from
private practitioners
is __________.
(existent)

Exercises - Affixes

__________ resources
that took aeons to
constitute are
squandered in an
instant, according to
the "laws" of supply
and demand.
(replaceable)

Exercises - Affixes

I try not to go to
the supermarket
at 5pm because
it's
__________________.
(practice)

Exercises - Affixes

He was accused of
__________________
documents.
(false)

Exercises - Affixes

You shouldn't have

done that! It was
very
__________________
of you. (think)

Exercises - Affixes

They had to
__________________
the lion before
they could catch
it. (tranquil)

Exercises - Affixes
How many words can you
grow from each root?
act

love

talk

dark

comfort

excite

station

suit

decide

mix