Although we’ve got nothing on German, the English language sometimes involves putting different ‘parts’ of words or even whole words together to make a new term. And prefixes are a big part of this. But what exactly are prefixes? And how do you use them in your writing?
A prefix is a group of letters placed at the start of a word to change its meaning. We can even see how this works using the word ‘prefix’ itself, which is a combination of ‘pre-’ and ‘fix’:
As a result, a ‘prefix’ is something we ‘attach’ to the ‘front of’ another word.
There are many different prefixes in English, so we won’t try to provide a definitive list. However, some common examples include:
Prefix
Meaning
Example
Anti-
Against or opposed to
Antisocial, antiviral
Auto-
Related to the self or spontaneous
Automatic, autobiography
De-
Reverse or reduce
Devalue, decode
Dis-
Reverse or negate
Disobey, disappear
En-
Cause to be or put into
Enact, encase
Ex-
Out of or former
Extract, ex-girlfriend
Il-, Im-, In- or Ir-
Not or negate
Illegal, immobile, insufficient, irresponsible
Mis-
Incorrect
Misbehave, misspell
Post-
After, later or behind
Postseason, postscript
Pre-
Before or in front of
Prefix, prefrontal
Pro-
Favouring or promoting
Proclaim, pro-democracy
Re-
Repeat or restore
Refresh, rewrite
Sub-
Below or less than
Submarine, substandard
Trans-
Across or beyond
Transatlantic, transgender
Un-
Unzip, undo
You’ll notice that there are some overlaps above (e.g. Dis-, Il-, Im-, In- and Ir- all being used to indicate a negation in some cases). This is because different words come from different root languages, so the prefix we use in each case may depend on the etymology of the rest of the word.
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However, as long as you know what the most common prefixes mean, you should be able to use these terms correctly. And you can check a dictionary if you’re not sure whether a prefix is correct. To help you avoid errors, though, we’ll now look at some common prefix problems.
In the table above, we have hyphenated the words ‘ex-girlfriend’ and ‘pro-democracy’, whereas others are unhyphenated. This is because, generally, we only follow a prefix with a hyphen in certain cases, including:
There are exceptions to these rules. Most people spell ‘cooperate’, for example, without a hyphen. Nevertheless, the guidelines above can be helpful when you’re not sure whether to use a hyphen after a prefix.
Finally, a quick warning. The English language has borrowed lots of words from lots of places, so some similar-looking words have different meanings. And the same applies to prefixes. For example, the in- from ‘inaccurate’ is a negation, making it the opposite of ‘accurate’. However, the word ‘inflammable’ means the same as ‘flammable’, not the opposite!
This is because the in- from ‘inflammable’ comes from the same root as en- in words like ‘enrich’ or ‘entrust’. It therefore means ‘cause to be’, which is very different from negating something. You must, therefore, be careful when using prefixes, as they may not mean what they seem! And if you’d like more help checking your prefix use, just let us know.
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