Suffix: What It Is and How To Use It

Do you know what a suffix is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on suffix, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!

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What is a suffix?

According to Collins English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, and the American Heritage Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, a suffix is a letter or group of letters that is added to the end of a word in order to form a different word, new word, or part of speech. There are many different noun suffixes, verb endings, derivational suffixes, an inflectional suffix, adjective suffixes, adverb suffixes, and other parts of speech suffixes. Suffix is two syllables – suf-fix, and the pronunciation of suffix is ˈsʌfɪks.

There are many different suffixes like il, im, ify, ir, ance, es, ent, ical, ation, fy, and more in linguistics. You can see suffixes on thousands of words like internship, friendship and ownership, dancer, helper or volunteer, geology or biography, abandonment, revision, depth, or compulsion. This is of Latin roots.

Many different languages also contain words that mean suffix. You may notice that some of these translations of suffix look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of suffix is provided by Word Sense

  •  Tamil: பின்னொட்டு‎
  •  Arabic: لَاحِقَة‎ (fem.)
  •  Galician: sufixo‎ (masc.)
  •  Volapük: poyümot‎
  •  Latvian: piedēklis‎ (masc.), sufikss‎ (masc.)
  •  Nynorsk: suffiks‎ (neut.)
  •  Bulgarian: суфи́кс‎ (masc.), наста́вка‎ (fem.)
  •  Crimean Tatar: suffiks‎
  •  Ukrainian: су́фікс‎ (masc.)
  •  Russian: су́ффикс‎ (masc.)
  •  Mandarin: 後綴‎, 后缀‎ (hòuzhuì), 尾綴‎, 尾缀‎ (wěizhuì)
  •  Esperanto: sufikso‎
  •  Aragonese: sufixo‎ (masc.)
  •  Icelandic: viðskeyti‎ (neut.)
  •  Tagalog: hulapi‎
  •  Japanese: 接尾辞‎ (せつびじ, setsubiji)
  •  French: suffixe‎ (masc.)
  •  Persian: پسوند‎ (pasvand)
  •  Thai: ปัจจัย‎
  •  Macedonian: на́ставка‎ (fem.), су́фикс‎ (masc.)
  •  Dutch: achtervoegsel‎ (neut.), suffix‎ (masc.), aanhangsel‎ (neut.)
  •  Armenian: վերջածանց‎
  •  Asturian: sufixu‎ (masc.)
  •  Georgian: სუფიქსი‎, ბოლოსართი‎
  •  Italian: suffisso‎ (masc.)
  •  Kazakh: жұрнақ‎
  •  Catalan: sufix‎ (masc.)
  •  Polish: przyrostek‎ (m-in)
  •  Scottish Gaelic: iar-leasachan‎ (masc.), iar-mhìr‎ (masc.) (f)
  •  Latin: suffixum‎, affixum‎
  •  German: Suffix‎ (neut.) (Suffixum‎ (neut.), Affix‎ (neut.) (narrow sense), Affixum‎ (neut.)), Postfix‎ (neut.), Nachsilbe‎ (fem.), Anhängsilbe‎ (fem.)
  •  Interlingua: suffixo‎
  •  Spanish: sufijo‎ (masc.)
  •  Greek: επίθημα‎ (neut.)
  •  Ido: sufixo‎
  •  Welsh: olddodiad‎ (masc.)
  •  Mongolian: залгавар‎
  •  Turkish: sonek‎
  •  Swedish: suffix‎
  •  Serbo-Croatian: sufiks‎ (masc.), dometak‎ (masc.)
  •  Belarusian: су́фікс‎ (masc.)
  •  Maori: pīmuri‎, kūmuri‎
  •  Romanian: sufix‎ (neut.)
  •  Czech: přípona‎ (fem.)
  •  Finnish: jälkiliite‎, takaliite‎, suffiksi‎, pääte‎
  •  Portuguese: sufixo‎
  •  Bokmål: suffiks‎ (neut.)

What are examples of suffixes?

Suffixes can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or grammatical technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! Below are a couple of examples of suffixes that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use.  Take a look at these suffix examples from Your Dictionary and see how many you can identify the suffix in!

  •  -ing – verb form/present participle of an action
  •  -sion – state or being
  •  -ly – in what manner something is being done
  •  -ious, -ous – having qualities of
  •  -ion – the action or process of
  •  -ism – theory, act or belief
  •  -ed – past-tense version of a verb
  •  -al – pertaining to
  •  -er – someone who performs an action
  •  -ee – individual does something
  •  -y – made up of or characterized by
  •  -ity – the state or condition of
  •  -less – without something
  •  -or – a person who is something
  •  -en – become
  •  -ant – inclined to or tending to
  •  -eer – engaged in something, associated with something
  •  -able, -ible – capable of being
  •  -ic – relating to
  •  -ize, -ise – to cause or to become
  •  -wise – in relation to
  •  -th – state or quality
  •  -ward – in a certain direction
  •  -ment – the action or result of
  •  -ful – full of or notable of
  •  -ship – position held
  •  -ive – quality or nature of
  •  -ness – a state or quality
  •  -er – action or process, making an adjective comparative
  •  -ary – of or relating to
  •  -tion – forms a noun
  •  -ist – person who does or thinks something
  •  -ish – sort of

What are other literary techniques and devices?

There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you. 

  •  feminine
  •  indicative
  •  adverb (adv.)
  •  prefix
  •  cognate object
  •  possessive pronoun
  •  conditional
  •  present participle
  •  personal pronoun
  •  unmarked genitive
  •  direct question
  •  phrasal verb
  •  compound | compounding
  •  subjunctive
  •  adjective
  •  participle | past participle | present participle
  •  suffix
  •  predicative
  •  count noun
  •  attributive
  •  dative
  •  noun (n.)
  •  dual
  •  case
  •  abstract
  •  prepositional phrase
  •  part of speech
  •  concrete
  •  combination
  •  indirect speech
  •  relative
  •  third-person
  •  verbal noun
  •  impersonal (impers.)
  •  premodify | premodifier
  •  declarative
  •  reflexive
  •  copular verb | copula
  •  intransitive
  •  nominal relative | nominal relative clause
  •  similative
  •  that-clause
  •  absolute (absol.)
  •  complementary
  •  collective noun
  •  finite
  •  indirect passive
  •  double object
  •  non-referential
  •  element
  •  progressive
  •  bare infinitive
  •  protasis
  •  subject
  •  parasynthetic
  •  subjective
  •  participial adjective
  •  anticipatory
  •  possessive
  •  plural
  •  mass noun
  •  construed (const., constr.)
  •  main clause
  •  mood
  •  periphrasis | periphrastic
  •  cataphoric
  •  apodosis and protasis
  •  perfect
  •  intensifier
  •  transitive
  •  agree | agreement
  •  indirect object
  •  object | direct object | indirect object
  •  quasi-
  •  demonstrative
  •  locative
  •  collocation | collocate
  •  article
  •  accusative
  •  nominative
  •  possessive adjective
  •  indirect question
  •  prepositional passive
  •  adverbial | adverbially
  •  pleonasm | pleonastic
  •  superlative
  •  person
  •  direct object
  •  zero
  •  direct speech
  •  singular
  •  gender
  •  simple
  •  construction
  •  apposition
  •  objective
  •  definite article
  •  second person
  •  passive infinitive
  •  clause
  •  morpheme
  •  past participle
  •  auxiliary verb | auxiliary
  •  appositive
  •  combining form (comb. form)
  •  prepositional object
  •  ellipsis | elliptical
  •  masculine
  •  gerund
  •  head
  •  infinitive
  •  optative
  •  noun phrase
  •  conjunction (conj.)
  •  indefinite
  •  tense
  •  passive
  •  verb (v.)
  •  interrogative
  •  present tense
  •  proper noun | proper name
  •  vocative
  •  past tense
  •  imperative (imper.)
  •  agent noun
  •  modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
  •  pronoun (pron.)
  •  determiner
  •  postmodify | postmodifier
  •  to-infinitive
  •  modify | modifier
  •  active
  •  antecedent
  •  parenthetical | parenthetically
  •  common noun
  •  positive
  •  instrumental
  •  phrase (phr.)
  •  neuter
  •  suffix
  •  causative
  •  stem
  •  inflection | inflected | inflectional
  •  genitive
  •  number
  •  pro-form
  •  main verb
  •  interjection
  •  anaphoric
  •  filler
  •  sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
  •  comparative
  •  base form
  •  preposition (prep.)
  •  complement
  •  first person
  •  subordinate clause
  •  non-finite
  •  special use

Overall, a suffix is a letter or group of letters that is added to a word to change its meaning or part of speech.

Sources:

  1. Glossary of grammatical terms | OED 
  2. suffix: meaning, origin, translation | Word Sense 
  3. Suffix definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary 
  4. List of Suffixes: 30 Must-Know Suffix Examples | Your Dictionary