Many English words come from other languages, but Latin and Greek have a much stronger influence than almost any other. Even if a word doesn’t come directly from one of these ancient languages, a huge portion of our English vocabulary starts off with a Latin or Greek prefix.
It's All Greek (or Latin) To Me
Each Greek or Latin prefix says something about the word they’re attached to. Identifying the Greek or Latin prefix makes it easier to understand words you might never have seen before.
- a- / an- = not/without (asexual, anarchy, amoral)
- ex- = out (extract, exterior, exoskeleton)
- micro- = small (microscope, microcosm, microorganism)
See the trend? If you know what the prefix means, you have a clue about the rest of the word. With the prefix "micro-," it's assumed that the meaning is related to something small. Many words that come from Greek or Latin can be deciphered easily by examining the prefix and the root word or suffix.
Think about a skeleton— it's a hard, bony structure that keeps a body from melting into jelly. An exoskeleton is just a skeleton on the outside of the body. The prefix may not provide the literal definition, but it's enough to form an educated guess.
Common Greek and Latin prefixes
- Ab- = apart
- Ante- = before
- Anti- = against
- Auto- = self
- Bi- = two
- Bene- = good, favorable
- Circum- = around
- Di- = two, double
- Dis- = not, apart
- Geo- = earth
- Hetero- = mixed
- Homo- = same
- In- = not
- Inter- = between
- Macro- = large
- Mono- = one, single
- Ped- = foot
- Poly- = many
- Post- after
- Pre- = before
- Tele- = distance
- Trans- = across
A Greek or Latin prefix can put a whole new spin on a word. It’s how some antonyms are created — for example, "visible" and "invisible." The prefix "in-" means "not," and when it attaches to the word "visible," it reverses the meaning.
Let's upgrade the word to "invisibility." There's "visible" as the root word, and "in-" as the prefix. When the "-ity" suffix is added, there's an addition layer to the definition. The "-ity" suffix means "a state of being," amending the meaning to “the state of being unable to be seen.”
You don’t need to be fluent in Greek or Latin to understand the prefixes. It’s like a word puzzle. Start paying attention to how those prefixes change meanings of words, and you’ll become a human dictionary in no time!