In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, the clown Costard uses a word that runs to 27 letters: honorificabilitudinitatibus. It's often called the longest word in Shakespeare. It isn't nonsense. It's a Medieval Latin word built almost entirely from suffixes stacked on one root: honor, then -fic- ("make"), -abil- ("able"), -itudin- and -itat- (two different ways of saying "state of"), and a Latin case ending. Roughly, "the state of being able to achieve honours". Most English words don't pile them that high, but the same Latin suffixes sit at the end of thousands of everyday words.
What a suffix does
The roots deck in this unit covers the middle of a word, and the prefixes deck covers the front. A suffix goes on the end, and its main job is to change what kind of word you have. Equal is an adjective; equality, with -ity, is a noun. Clear (Latin clarus) is an adjective; clarify, with -fy, is a verb. Both of those came into English already built, but they show what the suffix does. Learn what a suffix does and you can often tell a word's job before you know its meaning.
Suffixes that make nouns
Several Latin suffixes turn a quality or an action into a thing:
| Suffix | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| -tion, -sion | act or result of | invention, decision |
| -ity | state or quality | curiosity, equality |
| -ance, -ence | state or quality | patience, tolerance |
| -ude | state or quality | solitude, magnitude |
| -ure | act or result | culture, fracture |
| -or | one who does | actor, inventor |
The -or words hide a few surprises. A doctor was, in Latin, a teacher, from docere, "to teach". The medical sense came much later.
Suffixes that make adjectives
-ous means "full of" (generous), -al means "relating to" (natural), -ive means "tending to" (creative), and -able or -ible means "able to be" (legible). Latin -id gives rapid and lucid; -ile gives fragile and docile, which once meant simply "teachable". -escent words describe something in the middle of changing: an adolescent is someone still growing up.
Suffixes that make verbs
-ate comes from Latin past participles: creare, "to create", had the participle creatus, and English made a verb from it. -fy comes from facere, "to make", so magnify is "make great".
The ones that came by way of French
Many of these suffixes didn't come straight from Latin. They passed through Old French first, and French had already changed their shape: Latin -itas became -ité, which is why English has -ity. The clearest case is -ment. Latin had -mentum (monumentum, a "reminder"), but most English -ment words came through French, like government. Once English had enough of them, it began adding -ment to its own words: settlement is an English word with a French-Latin ending. The same happened to -able, which is why washable exists.
Greek suffixes in Latin clothing
Three common suffixes are Greek, not Latin: -ism, -ist and -ize. Each reached English through Latin and French, which is why they feel Latin. They attach happily to Latin roots, so artist and dentist are Latin words with a Greek ending. The -ize and -ise spellings are both old; American English uses -ize, and British English accepts either.
Common mistakes
- Calling every -ism or -ize word Latin. The suffix is Greek, even when the root is Latin.
- Guessing -ant or -ent from the sound. Usually the Latin verb decides, but French muddled some. I'm simplifying when I say there's a rule.
- Spelling advertise or surprise with -ize. Neither contains the Greek suffix, and -ise is standard for both everywhere.
- Expecting the suffix to give the whole meaning. It tells you the word's job and a rough sense, not its exact meaning today.
Frequently asked questions
What are the most common Latin suffixes in English?
Among the ones you'll meet constantly are -tion, -ity, -able, -ous, -al, -ive, -ment and -ance.
What is the difference between -able and -ible?
They're the same Latin suffix in two forms, -abilis and -ibilis. Words borrowed whole from Latin often keep -ible; new English words almost always take -able.
Is -ize Latin or Greek?
Greek. It goes back to Greek -izein and reached English through Late Latin -izare and French -iser.
What does the suffix -cide mean?
Killing or killer, from Latin caedere, "to cut down, kill": homicide, pesticide.
Try it
Say each meaning before you flip the card. Then go back to honorificabilitudinitatibus: which of its suffixes still end English words, and which English words have them?