Etymology - English Words with Latin Prefixes

Formation of English words from Latin prepositions.

Related Resources • A Little Etymology • More Latin Words in English • Review Dominik's Words and Ideas • Etymology

A prefix is attached to a word at its beginning. Here are a few English words with prefixes:

• admit,
• bicycle,
• transfer, and
• circumstance.

There are also suffixes that are attached at the end and, occasionally in English, infixes that are inserted into another word. Prefixes are usually adverbs or prepositions derived from Greek or Latin that can't be used alone in English. The transformation of (prepositional and adverbial) prefixes is direct, although often the final letter of the prefix is changed or eliminated. First, we'll look at Latin prepositions and then at their use as prefixes in English.

Some common Latin prepositions with the Ablative

Latin Examples:

• ab,
• de,
• ex, and
• cum.

These Latin prepositions take as their object a noun in the ablative -- from the Latin preposition ab [away] plus the past participle [latus] of the Latin verb fero [to carry]. Nouns in the ablative in Latin often convey the idea of carrying away.

English Examples:

• To avert one's eyes is to turn them away and
• an exorbitant price is one way beyond the norm.

Some common Latin prepositions with the Accusative

Latin Examples:

• trans,
• ad,
• ante,
• per, and
• post.

Accusative is like our objective case -- the one we see when we have a prepositional phrase involving a pronoun:

"I walked toward him."

Toward is the preposition (ad in Latin) and "him" is the objective case of the pronoun "he."

English Example:

• A Latin prepositional phrase with the accusative that we should all be familiar with is post meridiem. It may be more familiar as our temporal abbreviation "p.m."

Latin Prepositions as Prefixes in English

These common Latin prepositions are very common in English, as well. But in English they don't have an object, nor do they stand alone in the sentence as separate words. Instead, they are "bound morphemes" that must be attached to a word -- generally, a verb. Sometimes it is a bit hard to recognize the original Latin preposition because it has been changed to make the English word with it attached easier to pronounce. Sometimes the Romans did this as well when they added prepositions and adverbs to their own verbs.

Quick Example:

The English word "attend" comes from the Latin preposition ad- combined with the Latin verb tendo, which is combined in Latin as it is in English, with the /d/ of ad changing to a /t/ to match the initial consonant of the verb. Try pronouncing adtend and attend. Do you see why the /d/ was "assimilated" to the following consonant? Further explanation follows below, in the footnote.

My thanks to William J. Dominik for putting these word forms together so usefully in his "Words and Ideas," 2002: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc.

Latin Preposition: AB or A away or away from Latin Prefix:
ab- a- abs-	abduct avert* abstruse
Latin Preposition: DE down or away from Latin Prefix:
de-	default
Latin Preposition: EX or E out of or from Latin Prefix:
ex- e- ef-	exorbitant eliminate effete
Latin Preposition: CUM with Latin Prefix:
com- co- col- con- cor-	compound cooperate collect convolution correspond
Latin Preposition: TRANS across or over Latin Prefix:
trans- tra- tran-	transmigrate traverse transubstantiate
Latin Preposition: AD to, toward or near Latin Prefix:
ad- a- ac- af- ag- al- an- ap- ar- as- at-	advertise aspire accept affect agglutinative alliteration annihilate* appoint arrest assign attenuate
Latin Preposition: ANTE before Latin Prefix:
ante-	antediluvian
Latin Preposition: PER through or by Latin Prefix:
per-	percent
Latin Preposition: POST after or behind Latin Prefix:
post-	postscript
*The Greek prefix a/an means 'not' (it's referred to as an alpha-privative), so many words beginning with a or an have a negative connotation. Annihilate, which may sound negative, comes from ad and nihil. Notice the double n. The prefix for the Greek negation has the /n/ only before a vowel, so the an- can not come from the negation. The reason the /d/ in ad is manifest as an /n/ is because the alveolar voiced stop consonant /d/ is assimilated to the alveolar nasal /n/ for ease of pronunciation.

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Etymology - English Words with Latin Prefixes
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