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In linguistics, a suffix (also sometimes called a postfix or ending) is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, a suffix is called an afformative, as they can alter the form of the words to which they are fixed. In Indo-European studies, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see Proto-Indo-European root). A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme is known as a suffixoid^[1] or a semi-suffix^[2] (e.g., English -like or German -freundlich 'friendly').

Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional suffixes) or lexical information (derivational suffixes). An inflectional suffix is sometimes called a desinence.^[3]

Some examples in European languages:

Girls, where the suffix -s marks the plural.

He makes, where suffix -s marks the third person singular present tense.

It closed, where the suffix -ed marks the past tense.

De beaux jours, where the suffix -x marks the plural.

Elle est passablement jolie, where the suffix -e marks the feminine form of the adjective.

Many synthetic languages—Czech, German, Finnish, Latin, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, etc.—use a large number of endings.

Suffixes used in English frequently have Greek, French or Latin origins.

Inflectional suffixes[link]

Inflection changes grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. In the example:

I was hoping the cloth wouldn't fade, but it has faded quite a bit.

the suffix -ed inflects the root-word clear to indicate past tense.

Some inflectional suffixes in present day English:

• -s third person singular present
• -ed past tense
• -ing progressive/continuous
• -en past participle
• -s plural
• -en plural (irregular)
• -er comparative
• -est superlative
• -n't negative^[4]

Derivational suffixes[link]

In the example:

"The weather forecaster said it would be clear today, but I can't see clearly at all"

the suffix -ly modifies the root-word clear from an adjective into an adverb. Derivation can also form a semantically distinct word within the same syntactic category. In this example:

"The weather forecaster said it would be a clear day today, but I think it's more like clearish!"

the suffix -ish modifies the root-word clear, changing its meaning to "clear, but not very clear".

Some derivational suffixes in present day English:

• -ian
• -ize/-ise
• -fy
• -ly
• -ful
• -able/-ible
• -hood
• -ness
• -less
• -ism
• -ment
• -ist
• -al
• -ish

See also[link]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Look up suffix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Comprehensive and searchable suffix reference