Questions tagged [suffixes]

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16 votes
2 answers
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What is the difference between -us and -io?

One can derive nouns from verbs by attaching -us or -io to the perfect participle stem. For example, movere gives rise to motus (fourth declension) and motio. The meanings of these derived words are ...
Joonas Ilmavirta's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
235 views

Is cultura a future participle?

Some nouns derived from verbs look like future participles: cultura from colere, sepultura from sepelire, scriptura from scribere… These do not have a future meaning, but are merely names for ...
Joonas Ilmavirta's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
2k views

Constructing Latin diminutives

In the course of trying to construct an accurate diminutive form of the word abdomen - which for the record is Latin in origin (in the form abdōmen), having been borrowed by English via Middle French -...
MarqFJA87's user avatar
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10 votes
1 answer
2k views

What augmentative options are there in Latin?

Augmentative, the opposite of diminutive, is a derived word that means greater size or extent. Diminutives are common and productive in Latin, but how about the opposite? Some Romance languages have ...
Joonas Ilmavirta's user avatar
20 votes
1 answer
543 views

What is the origin of the -a in words like "collega, advena"?

There are a couple of masculine (or common) nouns of the first declension. Some are from masculine Greek -ês, like poeta, nauta. But others, like collega, advena, parricida, scriba, incola, agricola, ...
Cerberus's user avatar
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14 votes
1 answer
2k views

What does the suffix -mentum add to a word's meaning?

Lewis and Short lists 275 words ending in -mentum, many of which have come into English: argumentum augmentum documentum fragmentum pigmentum segmentum etc. Wiktionary (cited as an example, not as ...
brianpck's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
918 views

Is "-landia" good Latin?

Several Latin names of modern countries end in -landia if the corresponding English name ends in -land: Islandia, Nederlandia, Irlandia, Thailandia, Finlandia (also Finnia). England has a much older ...
Joonas Ilmavirta's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
1k views

Why do numbered months in the ancient Roman calendar have different suffixes?

Wikipedia and other sites detail the (possibly legendary) ancient Roman "Calendar of Romulus": I'm curious about the suffixes to the "numbered" months, the fifth through tenth. The names of the ...
Daniel R. Collins's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
484 views

What is the gender and singular declension of the scientific Latin suffix -idae?

The scientific suffix -idae is used to form names of subclasses of plants or families of animals, e.g. Bovidae. In scientific writing (in English and German), the resulting words are treated as plural ...
Lukas G's user avatar
  • 193
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

When should the preposition *cum* be added as a suffix?

I was reading Plautus and came across quacum, which set in motion a few observations: Most beginning Latinists are familiar with the following constructions with first- and second- person and ...
brianpck's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
862 views

How can the use of "-aeus" as an adjective suffix in "Herculaeus" be explained?

Apparently, the English word "Herculean" has an old spelling variant "Herculæan". This seems to correspond to a Latin variant of the adjective "herculeus/Hercŭlĕus" spelled "Herculæus" (example: "...
Asteroides's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
260 views

Has "tribalis" ever been used in Latin?

I was recently looking up the etymologies of some obscure words related to the English word tribe (like the adjective tribual), and I came across a Wiktionary page that asserts that there is or was a ...
Asteroides's user avatar
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