English
suffix
Suffix comes from Latin suffīxus, from fīxus ‘immovable, fixed, fastened’, and ultimately from fīgō.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīgō‘fasten, fix’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīxus‘immovable, fixed, fastened’next step skipped: Latin suffīgō
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsuffīxus
- Englishearliest quotation 1882suffix
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīgō‘fasten, fix’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīxus‘immovable, fixed, fastened’next step skipped: Latin suffīgō
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEsuffīxus
- Englishearliest quotation 1882suffix
Earliest quotation: 1882, An Etymological Dictionary of the Englis: “[...] by suffixing the ending -or to collaborat-, the…”
Formed from sub- + -fix
Proto-Indo-European *upó ‘up; from below’
Proto-Italic *supo ‘under’
Latin sub ‘under, beneath, below’
English sub-
Linked words
through Latin fīgō ‘fasten, fix’
through Latin fīxus ‘immovable, fixed, fastened’
Today it means
noun A morpheme added at the end of a word to modify the word's meaning.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin fīgō / suffix