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word-forming element meaning "tree," from Greek dendron "tree," sometimes especially "fruit tree" (as opposed to hylē "timber"), from PIE *der-drew-, from root *deru- "to be firm, solid, steadfast," also forming words for "wood, tree."

-genous

word-forming element meaning "generating, producing, yielding;" see -gen + -ous. In modern formations, making adjectives corresponding to words in -gen. In some older words, from Late Latin -genus, from Latin -gena "born" (for example indigenous).

-ty (1)

suffix representing "ten" in cardinal numbers that are multiples of 10 (sixty, seventy, etc.), from Old English -tig, from a Germanic root (cognates: Old Saxon, Dutch -tig, Old Frisian -tich, Old Norse -tigr, Old High German -zug, German -zig) that existed as a distinct word in Gothic (tigjus) and Old Norse (tigir) meaning "tens, decades." Compare tithe (n.).

English, like many other Germanic languages, retains traces of a base-12 number system. The most obvious instance is eleven and twelve which ought to be the first two numbers of the "teens" series. Their Old English forms, enleofan and twel(eo)f(an), are more transparent: "leave one" and "leave two."

Old English also had hund endleofantig for "110" and hund twelftig for "120." One hundred was hund teantig. The -tig formation ran through 12 cycles, and could have bequeathed us numbers *eleventy ("110") and *twelfty ("120") had it endured, but already during the Anglo-Saxon period it was being obscured.

Old Norse used hundrað for "120" and þusend for "1,200." Tvauhundrað was "240" and þriuhundrað was "360." Older Germanic legal texts distinguished a "common hundred" (100) from a "great hundred" (120). This duodecimal system is "perhaps due to contact with Babylonia" [Lass, "Old English"].

-ile

also -il, word-forming element denoting ability or capacity, from Old French -il or directly from Latin adjectival suffix -ilis. Used in classical and Medieval Latin to form ordinal numbers, which accounts for its use from late 19c. in statistics (percentile, etc.).

-phone

word-forming element meaning "voice, sound," also "speaker of," from Greek phōnē "voice, sound" of a human or animal, also "tone, voice, pronunciation, speech," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, say, tell" (source also of Latin for, fari "to speak," fama "talk, report").

cyto-

before a vowel, cyt-, word-forming element, from Latinized form of Greek kytos "a hollow, receptacle, basket" (from PIE *ku-ti-, from root *(s)keu- "to cover, conceal"); used in modern science since c. 1859 for "cell," perhaps especially from the sense (in Aristophanes) of "a cell of a hive of wasps or bees."

-gate

suffix attached to any word to indicate "scandal involving," 1973, abstracted from Watergate, the Washington, D.C., building complex that was home of the National Headquarters of the Democratic Party when it was burglarized June 17, 1972, by operatives later found to be working for the staff and re-election campaign of U.S. President Richard Nixon.

-ful

word-forming element attached to nouns (and in modern English to verb stems) and meaning "full of, having, characterized by," also "amount or volume contained" (handful, bellyful); from Old English -full, -ful, which is full (adj.) become a suffix by being coalesced with a preceding noun, but originally a separate word. Cognate with German -voll, Old Norse -fullr, Danish -fuld. Most English -ful adjectives at one time or another had both passive ("full of x") and active ("causing x; full of occasion for x") senses.

It is rare in Old English and Middle English, where full was much more commonly attached at the head of a word (for example Old English fulbrecan "to violate," fulslean "to kill outright," fulripod "mature;" Middle English had ful-comen "attain (a state), realize (a truth)," ful-lasting "durability," ful-thriven "complete, perfect," etc.).

azo-

before vowels az-, word-forming element denoting the presence of nitrogen, used from late 19c. as combining form of azote (1791), the old term for "nitrogen" (from Greek a- "not, without" (see a- (3)) + zoion "a living being," from PIE root *gwei- "to live"), which was coined in French by Lavoisier & de Morveau because living things cannot survive in the pure gas.

ornitho-

before vowels ornith-, word-forming element meaning "bird, birds," from combining form of Greek ornis (genitive ornithos; plural ornithēs) "a bird," in Attic generally "domestic fowl, cock or hen," which often was added to the specific name of the type of bird, from PIE *or- "large bird" (see erne).

For "bird" Greek also had ptēnon (plural peteina), related to pteron "wing," from the root meaning "to fly."

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