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111 entries found.

word-forming element expressing incomplete resemblance (such as poetaster), usually diminutive and deprecatory, from Latin -aster, from a suffix forming nouns from verbs ending in Greek -azein; in later Latin generalized as a pejorative suffix, as in patraster "he who plays the father."

-ase

word-forming element used in naming enzymes, from ending of diastase.

astro-

element active in English word formation from mid-18c. and meaning "star or celestial body; outer space," from Greek astro-, stem and combining form of astron "star," which is related to aster "star," from PIE root *ster- (2) "star." In ancient Greek, aster typically was "a star" and astron mostly in plural, "the stars." In singular it mostly meant "Sirius" (the brightest star).

-ast

agential suffix, from French -ast, from Latin -asta, from Greek -astes, the form of -istes (see -ist) used after -i-.

Latino-

prefix in use from 1939 as a combining form of Latin, from ablative of Latin latinus. By 1958 as a combining form from Latino.

glosso-

before vowels gloss-, word-forming element meaning "tongue," from Greek glosso-, used as a combining form of glōssa (Attic glōtta) "tongue" (see gloss (n.2)). Also sometimes meaning "gloss, word inserted as explanation," as in glossography "the writing of glosses."

-ee

word-forming element in legal English (and in imitation of it), representing the Anglo-French -é ending of past participles used as nouns (compare -y (3)). As these sometimes were coupled with agent nouns in -or, the two suffixes came to be used as a pair to denote the initiator and the recipient of an action.

Not to be confused with the French -ée that is a feminine noun ending (as in fiancée), which is from Latin -ata.

-xion

ending favored in British English for certain words that in U.S. typically end in -ction, such as connexion, complexion, inflexion, as being more true to the Latin rules.

-al (2)

suffix forming nouns of action from verbs, mostly from Latin and French, meaning "act of ______ing" (such as survival, referral), Middle English -aille, from French feminine singular -aille, from Latin -alia, neuter plural of adjective suffix -alis, also used in English as a noun suffix. Nativized in English and used with Germanic verbs (as in bestowal, betrothal).

-nik

as in beatnik, etc., suffix used in word formation from c. 1945, from Yiddish -nik (as in nudnik "a bore"), from Russian -nik, common personal suffix meaning "person or thing associated with or involved in" (compare nudnik; kolkhoznik "member of a kolkhoz"). Rocketed to popularity with sputnik (q.v.), hence its brief vogue in English word-formation, as in robotnik "person behaving with mindless obedience" (1960).

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