Professional Documents
Culture Documents
anti (= against)
antibodies, anti-social
auto (self)
autonomous, autobiography, automobile
bi (= two)
bicycle
co (= with)
cooperate, coordinate
contra (= against)
contradict, contravene
de (= remove)
deregulate, deselect
dis (= not)
disappear
il (= not)
illegal
im (= not)
immaterial, immature
inter (= between)
international
mis(= badly/wrongly)
misinform, misbehave, misunderstand
multi (= many)
multinational
non (= opposite)
non-profit
post (= after)
postpone, postnatal
pre (= before)
predict
re (= again)
rewrite, relive
sub (= under)
submarine
super (= higher/improved)
supermarket
trans (= across)
transatlantic
uni (= one)
uniform
Word Endings
You can also make new words from the words you already know by using different endings. For
example, "The person who employs me has a fast car". You can make this sentence simpler,
by replacing "the person who employs me" with "my employer". This gives you "My
employer has a fast car."
In English you can make nouns from verbs (to employ gives employer and employee). You can
also make verbs from nouns or adjectives: government gives to govern, modern gives to
modernise and so on. Learning what endings you can put on words means you can expand your
vocabulary and say what you mean more easily.
Nouns
-er /- or: a person who does something
adviser / advisor, teacher, learner
-ian
optician, mathematician
-ion
confusion, apparition
-ness
happiness
-ship
leadership
-ence / ance
permanence, appearance
-acy
lunacy
-age
marriage
-ity
annuity
-y
photography
-cy
fluency
Verbs
-ify
falsify, modify
-ise
modernise
Adjectives
-ic
idiotic, periodic
-ful
awful, wonderful
-able / ible
comfortable, terrible
-proof / resistant
waterproof, childproof, fireproof
-free
alcohol free beer, nuclear free zone
-less: without
hopeless, childless