Prefixes and suffixes are affixes that can change the meaning and part of speech of a root word. Common prefixes include un-, dis-, and non-, while common suffixes include -ed and -s. Adding a prefix or suffix can completely change the meaning of a word, and new words can be formed by adding one or both.
In the English language, you can add a prefix or suffix to a root word to change its meaning. A prefix comes before the root word and a suffix comes after it. Prefix and suffix are known as affixes or additions to a word and differ in their position relative to a word.
Common prefixes include un-, dis-, mal-, non-, mid- and mini-, while common suffixes are –ed, -s, -es, -ing. Suffixes often indicate the tense or number of a word, but they can also be used to indicate part of speech. For example, adding –ly to the end of a word often indicates that the word is an adverb. The prefix and suffix can take on different meanings depending on which root word precedes or succeeds, and thus depend on the root word and cannot stand alone.
In many cases, adding a prefix or suffix to a word completely changes the meaning of that word. For example, the word “latch” means to fix or fix. But by prefixing un- to the root word to make “unlatch,” the meaning was changed to mean release or let free. In this case, adding a prefix made the word mean the opposite of the root word. Taking the same root word and adding the suffix –ed to create “latch” changes the tense of the word. While the root of the word takes place in the present, adding –ed the action indicated by the word now took place in the past.
The roles of the prefix and suffix have been embellished over the centuries, and it’s not uncommon to see new words formed by the addition of one or both. For example, television personality Stephen Colbert recently coined the term “truth” by adding a suffix to the word “truth” to denote an idea or concept that has elements of truth but is not necessarily the truth. While the word is somewhat nonsensical, the addition of the –ness suffix made the word catchy, and many linguists applauded the new creation.
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