Common English Suffixes and Prefixes

A prefix is a letter or a group of letters attached to the beginning of a word that partly indicates its meaning. For example, the word prefix itself begins with a prefix--pre-, which generally means "before."

Understanding the meanings of the common prefixes can help us deduce the meanings of new words that we encounter. But be careful: some prefixes (such as in-) have more than one meaning (in this example, "not" and "into").

The table below defines and illustrates 35 common prefixes.

Common Prefixes

Prefix	Meaning	Example
a-, an-	without	amoral
ante-	before	antecedent
anti-	against	anticlimax
auto-	self	autopilot
circum-	around	circumvent
co-	with	copilot
com-, con-	with	companion, contact
contra-	against	contradict
de-	off, away from	devalue
dis-	not	disappear
en-	put into	enclose
ex-	out of, former	extract, ex-president
extra-	beyond, more than	extracurricular
hetero-	different	heterosexual
homo-	same	homonym
hyper-	over, more	hyperactive
il-, im-, in-, ir-	not, without	illegal, immoral, inconsiderate, irresponsible
in-	into	insert
inter-	between	intersect
intra-	between	intravenous
macro-	large	macroeconomics
micro-	small	microscope
mono-	one	monocle
non-	not, without	nonentity
omni-	all, every	omniscient
post-	after	postmortem
pre-, pro-	before, forward	precede, project
sub-	under	submarine
syn-	same time	synchronize
trans-	across	transmit
tri-	three	tricycle
un-	not	unfinished
uni-	one	unicorn

A suffix is a letter or a group of letters attached to the end of a word to form a new word or to alter the grammatical function of the original word. For example, the verb read can be made into the noun reader by adding the suffix -er; read can be made into the adjective readable by adding the suffix -able.

Understanding the meanings of the common suffixes can help us deduce the meanings of new words that we encounter. The table below defines and illustrates 26 common suffixes.

Common Suffixes

Noun Suffixes
Suffix	Meaning	Example
-acy	state or quality	privacy
-al	act or process of	refusal
-ance, -ence	state or quality of	maintenance, eminence
-dom	place or state of being	freedom, kingdom
-er, -or	one who	trainer, protector
-ism	doctrine, belief	communism
-ist	one who	chemist
-ity, -ty	quality of	veracity
-ment	condition of	argument
-ness	state of being	heaviness
-ship	position held	fellowship
-sion, -tion	state of being	concession, transition
Verb Suffixes
-ate	become	eradicate
-en	become	enlighten
-ify, -fy	make or become	terrify
-ize, -ise	become	civilize
Adjective Suffixes
-able, -ible	capable of being	edible, presentable
-al	pertaining to	regional
-esque	reminiscent of	picturesque
-ful	notable for	fanciful
-ic, -ical	pertaining to	musical, mythic
-ious, -ous	characterized by	nutritious, portentous
-ish	having the quality of	fiendish
-ive	having the nature of	creative
-less	without	endless
-y	characterized by	sleazy