The endings –able, –ion, –er, –or, –ance, –ence, –ous, –ish, and –al are generally used to form adjectives and nouns. Read these guidelines to learn how they affect the spelling of the word to which they’re added, then test yourself with the training quizzes.
Prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms are some of the important building blocks for creating new words in English. Find out more about words formed this way, then test yourself with the training quiz.
Mid 17th century: from Italian quarantina ‘forty days’, from quaranta ‘forty’.
Old English gān, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch gaan and German gehen; the form went was originally the past tense of wend.
Middle English (also in the sense ‘reputation’, which survives in house of ill fame): via Old French from Latin fama.
Proficiency word lists of press, compress, depress, express, impress, oppress, repress, and suppress.
Both press and print (Middle English) can be traced back to Latin premere, ‘to press’, as can pressure, compress, depress, express, impress, oppress, repress, suppress, etc.
Mid 19th century (earlier (Middle English) as juxtaposition ): from French juxtaposer, from Latin juxta ‘next’ + French poser ‘to place’.
Early 17th century (in the senses ‘harmonize discrepancies’ and ‘assess loss or damages’): from obsolete French adjuster, from Old French ajoster ‘to approximate’, based on Latin ad– ‘to’ + juxta ‘near’.