The meaning of new words can be guessed from their parts, too. Some words start with a prefix, a group of letters added at the beginning of a word. For example, transportation and transfer begin with trans- which means across. Therefore, trans- tells us that the word is connected with movement or change. We can see how that relates to the meaning of transportation – a way of getting from one place to another – or transfer – moving from one place to another.

If you know what the parts of a word mean, you can often guess the meaning of the word without looking it up in the dictionary. Below are some of the most common word parts.

Prefixes (these come at the beginning of the word) 

Meaning

Example

  1. anti-

against

antisocial

  1. bene-

good

benefit

  1. inter-

between

international

  1. pre-

before

prepare

  1. sub-

below

submarine

 

Suffixes (these come at the end of the word)

Meaning

Example

For Nouns

  1. -ism

belief

communism

  1. -ness

condition

happiness

For Verbs

  1. -ify

change

magnify

  1. -ize

change

standardize

For Adjectives

  1. -ful

with

beautiful

  1. -less

without

homeless

 

When you come across a word that is not familiar to you, think about whether it has any "family members". For example, if you learn the word improve, ask yourself these questions: 

  • What part of speech is it?

  • What other words is it related to? These will be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. 

The table below is filled with word families. All words are taken from the readings in this unit: 

  • improve
  • information
  • useful
  • voraciously

Note that not all words will have all four parts of speech.

Noun

Verb

Adjective

Adverb

improvement

improve

improvable

--

information

inform

--

--

usage

use

useful

usefully

voracity

--

voracious

voraciously

 

Source: Tania Pattison, https://www.nscc.ca/library/docs/copyright/oer/otb197-01-college-skills-intermediate-english.pdf
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