Suffixes  

Suffixes are morphemes (specific groups of letters with particular semantic meaning) that are added onto the end of root words to change their meaning. Suffixes are one of the two predominant kinds of affixes—the other kind is prefixes, which come at the beginning of a root word.

There is a huge range of suffixes in English, which can be broadly categorized as either inflectional or derivational.

Suffixes are used to change the grammatical function of an existing word. Sometimes this change is minor, with the word retaining its basic meaning and word class (part of speech) but conforming to the grammatical rules required by the structure of the sentence; these are known as inflectional suffixes. More often, the addition of a suffix results in the formation of a word that is in a completely different class and shares a meaning similar to the original root word; these are called derivational suffixes.

Inflection refers to the changing of a word’s spelling according to the grammatical structure of a sentence. This is often accomplished by adding a specific suffix onto the end of a root word.

These inflectional suffixes are only used to modify the grammatical meaning of a word; they do not change a word from one part of speech to another, nor do they alter the fundamental meaning of the word. For example, the suffix “-s” is used with most nouns to indicate that they are plural (i.e., more than one), as in boys and girls. The basic meanings of the root words boy and girl do not change; they’ve simply been inflected to show that the speaker is talking about more than one.

Inflectional suffixes can be used with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The tables below show all of the inflectional suffixes used with these parts of speech, as well as examples of each.

(*There are many irregular plural forms of nouns that do not adhere to any specific spelling pattern. To learn more about these and other rules for making nouns plural, see the section on Forming Plurals.)

(*These words function either as adjectives or adverbs, depending on their use. Those without an asterisk only function as adjectives.)

Unlike inflectional suffixes, derivational suffixes create a new—though related—meaning in the word that’s formed. In many cases, the word formed by the addition of a derivational suffix will belong to a completely different part of speech (or word class). Suffixes that cause a shift in word class are sometimes referred to as class-changing suffixes.

There are many, many derivational suffixes used in English—too many to list here. We’ll just look at those most commonly encountered in day-to-day writing and speech.

It’s important to note that many words in modern English feature suffixes used with Latin, Old English, or foreign-language roots. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll mostly be focusing on examples of roots that can stand alone as words (with a few notable exceptions).

Derivational suffixes that create nouns most often attach to verbs and (to a lesser degree) adjectives. However, several noun suffixes are also class-maintaining, meaning they form new nouns from other existing nouns. We’ll look at some of these a little later.

As we mentioned already, many suffixes attach to existing nouns to create another noun with a new meaning. Because the words remain nouns, these suffixes are known as class-maintaining suffixes. (We looked at some of these already—they can be either class maintaining or class changing, depending on the root word that the suffix attaches to.)

Here are some of the most common:

Another common suffix used to form nouns is the ending “-logy” (or “-ology” when following certain consonant sounds), which produces the meaning “a branch or field of knowledge, science, theory, or study.”

This suffix usually does not attach to pre-existing English roots; instead, it more often connects to Greek or Latin roots. For example:

(*The root zoo- is a combining form derived from the Greek word zoion. The English word zoo is actually a shortening of the term zoological garden.)

Because the meaning of “-(o)logy” is so well established, it is sometimes attached to existing English words to create new terms that follow the pattern established by the Greek and Latin roots. For instance:

However, this combination is much less common than the use of Greek or Latin roots.

Derivational suffixes that create verbs attach to nouns and adjectives.

In American English, the suffix “-ize” is used to change nouns and adjectives into verbs, as we have just seen, and it also appears in verbs that do not have standalone root words. British English, however, predominantly uses the synonymous suffix “-ise.” For more information on this difference in spelling, go to the section on American English vs. British English.

There is also another common suffix that results in the creation of verbs: “-ate.” However, while this ending does occasionally attach to pre-existing nouns or adjectives (meaning “to act on, cause to become or be modified, or furnish with”), it is much more likely to appear in verbs that come from the past participles of Latin verbs. Even many words that look like they come directly from nouns or adjectives are in fact derived from Latin. For example:

Derivational suffixes that create adjectives usually attach to nouns. Much less often, they attach to verbs.

By far the most common and well-known suffix that creates adverbs by attaching to adjectives is “-ly.” However, there are two others derivational suffixes that form adverbs: “-ways/-wise” and “-ward.”

Finally, it’s worth pointing out how the spelling of many words becomes slightly altered when a suffix is added. Even though these changes can at times seem haphazard, there are actually several guidelines we can follow to determine how a word’s spelling might change if a suffix is added. Go to the section on Spelling Conventions with Suffixes to learn more.