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5401 entries found
-s (1)
suffix forming almost all Modern English plural nouns, gradually extended in Middle English from Old English
-as
, the nominative plural and accusative plural ending of certain "strong" masculine nouns (such as
dæg
"day," nominative/accusative plural
dagas
"days"). The commonest Germanic declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Dutch
-s
plurals and (by rhotacism) Scandinavian
-r
plurals (such as Swedish
dagar
). Much more uniform today than originally; Old English also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in
-an
, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with
-u
. Quirk and Wrenn, in their Old English grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masculine, nearly four-fifths of them with genitive singular
-es
and nominative/accusative plural in
-as
. Less than half, but still the largest chunk. The triumphs of
-'s
possessives and
-s
plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (such as
-ing
), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (such as
ducks, sweets, babes
) as an affectionate or diminutive suffix. Old English single-syllable collectives (
sheep
,
folk
) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use
-s
. The use of it in these cases began in Middle English, but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (
ten pound of butter
;
more than seven year ago
; etc.).
-s (2)
third person singular present indicative suffix of verbs, it represents Old English
-es, -as
, which began to replace
-eð
in Northumbrian 10c., and gradually spread south until by Shakespeare's time it had emerged from colloquialism and
-eth
began to be limited to more dignified speeches.
-saurus
element used in forming dinosaur names, from Latinized form of Greek
sauros
"lizard," a word of unknown origin; possibly related to
saulos
"twisting, wavering."
-sch-
this letter group can represent five distinct sounds in English; it first was used by Middle English writers to render Old English
sc-
, the pronunciation of which then simplified to "-sh-" (an evolution that also took place in Middle Dutch and Middle High German). Sometimes it was miswritten for
-ch-
. It also was taken in from German (
schnapps
) and Yiddish (
schlemiel
). In words derived from classical languages, it represents Latin
sch-
, Greek
skh-
but in some of these words (such as
schism
) the English spelling is a restoration and the pronunciation does not follow it.
-scope
word-forming element indicating "an instrument for seeing," from Late Latin
-scopium
, from Greek
-skopion
, from
skopein
"to look at, examine" (from PIE root
*spek-
"to observe").
-scopy
word-forming element meaning "viewing, examining, observing," from Modern Latin
-scopium
, from Greek
-skopion
, from
skopein
"to look at, examine" (from PIE root
*spek-
"to observe").
-ship
word-forming element meaning "quality, condition; act, power, skill; office, position; relation between," Middle English
-schipe
, from Old English
-sciepe
, Anglian
-scip
"state, condition of being," from Proto-Germanic
*-skapaz
(cognates: Old Norse
-skapr
, Danish
-skab
, Old Frisian
-skip
, Dutch
-schap
, German
-schaft
), from
*skap-
"to create, ordain, appoint," from PIE root
*(s)kep-
, forming words meaning "to cut, scrape, hack" (see
shape
(v.)).
-sis
suffix in Greek-derived nouns denoting action, process, state, condition, from Greek
-sis
, which is identical in meaning with Latin
-entia
, English
-ing
(1).
-sk
reflexive suffix in words of Danish origin (such as
bask
, literally "to bathe oneself"), contracted from Old Norse
sik
, reflexive pronoun corresponding to Gothic
sik
, Old High German
sih
, German
sich
"himself, herself, itself," from PIE root
*s(w)e-
(source of Latin
se
"himself;" see
idiom
).
-some (3)
word-forming element meaning "the body," Modern Latin, from Greek
soma
"the body" (see
somato-
).
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