Have you ever marveled at people with huge vocabularies,
those people who seemingly know the meaning s of almost every word? If you ever
felt that this “knowledge” was beyond your capability, I’ll let you in on a
little secret. Most people who have this super-human grasp of our language have
learned the meaning of root words, prefixes and suffixes.
For instance the word VOCABULARY has a root word VOC which is
the Latin word for CALL; another variant of this word is VOK. Knowing this you would
know that words such as VOCAL, REVOKE, INVOCATION, VOCIFEROUS and many more can
be simplified with CALL, CALLING, or TO CALL. Now if you understand the prefix
RE means AGAIN, BACK or BACKWARDS you can reason out that the word REVOKE means
TO CALL BACK.
Using the meanings of the root, prefix and suffix you will be
able to understand the general gist of a word and have a better comprehension
of what someone is saying. The translation of a word may not be literal but your
understanding of the intended meaning is greater.
A few of the more common root words in the English language
are: AUDI = hear; BIO = life; CHRONO = time; GEO = earth; JUR/JUS = law;
MAN/MANU = hand; OMNI=all; PATH = to feel; SRIB/SCRIPT = write; TELE = far
away; and VID/VIS = to see. Prefixes go at the beginning of the word, some
common prefixes are: ANTE = before; AUTO = self; CIRCUM = around; HYPER = more;
HYPO = less; MACRO = large; MICRO = small; POST = after; TRANS = across; and
UNI = single. A suffix goes at the end of the word and can change the part of
speech and how you use the word; for instance take the word DRIVE and add ING,
ABLE, ER, or EN and see how the word changes. Common suffixes include: ABLE/IBLE
= capable of being; ATE = become; ESQUE = reminiscent of; IFY/FY = make or
become; ISM = belief; IST = person who; LESS = without; LOGY/OLOGY = study of;
NESS = state of being; and Y = characterized by.
There are many more roots, prefixes and suffixes but just
from looking at the list above you can easily reason out the general meanings
of several words such as: TRANSPORT = to carry away; GEOLOGY = study of earth; MANUSCRIPT
= hand written; and VISABLE = capable of being seen. You can also see how easy
it is to use parts of words to change the meanings of other words like: UNIcycle,
BIcycle, and TRIcycle.
Go online and search root words, prefixes and suffixes and read
the translations, then the next time you are reading something and you come
across an unfamiliar word try to reason out the meaning BEFORE you look it up
and see how close you can come to understanding it.
Writing Exercise: Choose three prefixes and write as many words
as you can think of that start with those prefixes and meanings. Do the same
with three root words. Finally do the same with three suffixes.
Writing Prompt: Describe your
surroundings using as many prefix/root/suffix combinations as possible.
Challenge
Assignment: Look up the following words
for definition and the origins of any prefix/root/suffix that you can find: congruity,
contentious, ephemeral, gratuitous, idiosyncratic, inexorable, intransigent, noxious,
ostensible, pernicious, plenitude, predilection, proscribe, quixotic, recalcitrant,
rescind, sanguine, subjugate, ubiquitous, veracity, and vociferous.
