Affixes – Introduction
In the next few lessons, we will cover Affixes, which are another aspect of the English language often used without conscious thought. However, it’s important for students to learn about affixes as it can help to greatly increase their understanding of how many English words are constructed.
Learning about affixes will also help students to work out the meaning of certain new words without relying on a dictionary, which can serve as a great driver of motivation.
What are affixes?
Affixes are essentially just parts that are added to words to alter their meaning or create new words altogether. The most common types of affixes are prefixes and suffixes.
Prefixes are attached to the front of a word, with the most common being ‘un’. You can see the use of this prefix with a variety of verbs, where it alters the original word to give the opposite meaning:
Undo
Unable
Unafraid
Suffixes are additions at the end of a word that alter the meaning, create a new word or change its grammatical function. A common suffix is ‘er’, which can be attached to verbs to create a noun, or adjective:
Trainer
Walker
Happier
Affix examples
There are many types of prefix and suffix in the English language, each with different meanings and rules of use. Check out these examples below:
| Prefix | Meaning | Example: |
|---|---|---|
| mis | wrongly, incorrectly | misunderstand, misheard. |
| multi | many | multitool, multicultural. |
| pre | before | predetermined, precede, preview. |
| re | again | relive, revisit, realign. |
| Suffix | Meaning | Example: |
|---|---|---|
| able | ability | likeable, doable. |
| dom | a state | freedom, boredom. |
| less | lacking, without | voiceless, meaningless. |
| en | change state, become | broaden, harden. |
For more examples, read these external resources:
In the next page we’ll take a look at some of the rules behind using prefixes and suffixes.