Word Families
The meaning of new words can be guessed from their parts, too. 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.
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 |
|
|
against |
antisocial |
|
good |
benefit |
|
between |
international |
|
before |
prepare |
|
below |
submarine |
Suffixes (these come at the end of the word)
|
Meaning |
Example |
|
|
For Nouns |
||
|
belief |
communism |
|
condition |
happiness |
|
For Verbs |
||
|
change |
magnify |
|
change |
standardize |
|
For Adjectives |
||
|
with |
beautiful |
|
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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