Word forms

Prefixes and suffixes that are used in English give clues as to the meaning and, or the function of words. Typically suffixes indicate the function of a word in a sentence. For instance there are some suffixes that are used only for nouns and others that are used for verbs, adjectives and adverbs. The suffix used in forming a word also helps to give meaning to a word, for instance competition and competitor are both nouns that are formed from the verb compete. The -or suffix, however, indicates that there is a person performing the action, whereas the -tion suffix indicates a condition or state of being. Do note, that some suffixes are used with more than one type of word, so on their own they cannot be used to infer the function of the word in the sentence. In those situations, other context clues are needed to provide the function of that word in a particular sentence. For example, an -ing suffix occurs with nouns, verbs and adjectives; in the sentence “Teaching is interacting with interesting people,” teaching is a noun (a gerund), interacting is part of a verb phrase in the present progressive tense, and interesting is an adjective that qualifies people.

Suffixes

The tables below provide the more common noun, verb and adjective suffixes and give the usage and examples. There is only one common suffix for adverbs, and that is -ly. It is often added to adjectival suffixes as in creative and creatively.

Prefixes

Prefixes aid in determining the meaning of words. While some prefixes have only one meaning, others may have more than one, or there may be several prefixes with the same meaning. It is a situation that helps lead to the richness of the English vocabulary.

There are many words that have noun, verb, adjective, and adverb forms. A few of these word form families are given in the chart below as examples. Any good dictionary will give you the various forms of a word.