Word-building: A short preview

Did you ever play with legos or wood blocks when you were a kid? You could take lots of little pieces, snap them together, and come up with something new or a little bit different. Words in English are like this too. You can easily increase your vocabulary if you learn how words can be built and changed. Words are changed using prefixes and suffixes. This handout is a preview of prefixes and suffixes. Pre- means before, first. How many words can you think of that start with Pre-? _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________

Whats a prefix?

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Whats a suffix?

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_____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Suffixes can do two things they can change the meaning of the word, and also change its part of speech. For example, a suffix can make a verb into a noun, e.g. expect expectation

Prefixes and suffixes are everywhere! Think of the word act. How many words do you know that are based on the word act? prefix + act react act + suffix actor prefix + act + suffix transaction

Prefixes and suffixes have their own meanings. If you learn the meanings of common prefixes and suffixes, it will make it easier to guess the meanings of new words especially academic and business words! Exercise1: In the chart listed below, some of the most common prefixes are listed alphabetically. The general grammatical meaning of each prefix is given as an area of meaning because most often there is no one specific meaning. In the righthand column, space has been left for you to record examples of words which use the prefix. Your dictionary will provide examples. Choose those which are familiar or potentially useful to you. Prefix anteantiautobicircumArea of Meaning before against, opposite self two, twice around Examples

con-, co-, with, together col-, comcounter- in opposition to dedisex-, ehyperintermacromalmicrominimisdown, reversing negative out, from extremely between, among large bad, badly small little, small wrong, unfavourable

From: Study Skills For Students of English by Richard Yorkey

Now, go to the internet, or pull an English book or magazine out and see what words you can find with these prefixes. Write down 10 example sentences that you find, using some of the prefixes from the list above. Underline the word with the prefix in each sentence. You must write down exactly where you found the sentence, also. 1.

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