Word formation - prefixes (1)
Prefixes reveal a lot of secrets Learn to detect prefixes at the beginning of words. Learn their meanings and you will understand lots of words straight away. Eureka!

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What do the following words have in common?   affix prefix infix suffix		Well, they do have a number of things in common. Let's settle for the most obvious, the 'fix' at the end. So if we split them up, this is what we get:   af + fix pre + fix in + fix suf + fix The common piece, fix, is a root (base word) that means attach, fasten, and the pieces in front of fix are prefixes.
So, how shall I understand the four "fix" words?		affix - attached to prefix - attached at the front of (before) infix - attached inside suffix - attached at the end of (under, after)
affix		An affix is a piece of language that can be attached to any part of another piece of language.
prefix		A prefix is a piece of language that is attached to the beginning of another piece of language in order to modify the meaning (form another word).
infix		An infix is attached inside a word.
suffix		A suffix is attached at the end of a word.
How do these four "fix" words belong together?		Well, you know by now that "fix" is a root, and that the four words have different prefixes to modify their meaning. If you think of affix as a piece of language that can be attached to another piece of language (anywhere), and then consider the fact that a prefix is attached at the beginning, the infix inside, and the suffix at the end of words, you probably realize that there are three kinds of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. It is prefixes and suffixes that are important for your word formation skills (Eureka!)
So af, pre, in, suf are prefixes?		They are very common Latin prefixes. af and suf are assimilated (explanation below) forms of ad- and sub-. The other two, pre- and in-, are unchanged. Let's take a look at the meaning:
ad-		Ad- means "to", "towards", "attached to",  as in ad astra - to the stars - or as in aggressive - going against - or as in appendix - hanging attached to.
pre-		Pre- means "before", as in pre-war, pre-school, prepare, premature, etc..
in-		In- is easy; In a room, in a sentence, in a word, etc..
sub-		Sub- means "under", "below", as in subconscious - below the level of consciousness - or as in subway - a passage under the street - or as in suffix - something attached after (under) something else - or as in subtropics - the region next to (under, after) the tropics.
Why have the d in ad- and the b in sub- been changed into f?		The reason is really quite simple. "adfix" and "subfix" are difficult to pronounce.  When a combination of sounds are difficult to pronounce the easier sounds take over. It is much easier to say affix that to say adfix. The process of one speech sound being influenced by another is called assimilation.
What's all this good for then?		If you know the basic meaning of a prefix or a suffix you can often 'guess' the meaning of an unknown word. There is only a small number of prefixes and suffixes, but you find them in thousands of words. When you start recognizing them, you will increase your vocabulary much faster. As you recognize more and more word parts, and start thinking in terms of word families, your vocabulary will grow faster and faster. Eureka!

Ready for an exercise on prefixes?		OK, let's take a look at some words of Latin origin, and see if we can detect a few important prefixes.
accumulate ingredient advertisement deforest subconscious disconnect predict intercontinental contemporary
accumulate <ad cumulate>		ad- The Latin root -cumul- means something like "heap". So we get "add to the heap". Example: His money was accumulating in the bank. What is an accumulator?
deforest <de forest>		de- You probably know what a forest is. Deforest is a verb, which means to take away trees and turn a forest into an open area. Deforestation is a political issue, isn't it? The opposite? Yes, there is a word for planting new trees and making up for lost oxygen production; afforestation
predict <pre dict>		pre- You probably know words like dictator, dictation, and that the basic meaning is 'say'. To predict means that you say that something will (may) happen before it actually happens. There is actually a genuinely old English word with the same meaning - foretell
ingredient <in gredient>		in- If you like cooking you know that a recipe usually has several ingredients. The ingredients are what "go into" the stew.
subconscious <sub conscious>		sub- You know the word conscious. It means that you are awake and observing. You are aware of things and people around you. But you also register stimuli below your consciousness, subconsciously.
intercontinental <inter continental>		inter- It is not in-, but a prefix of its own. It means "between". Think of the meaning of words like international (between nations), inter-city (e.g. about trains or buses), interval (period between the acts of a play), so intercontinental means (e.g. flights) "between continents".
advertisement <ad vertisement>		ad- What do you do when you advertise? Well, you 'turn to' people to make them buy your articles. 'vert' has the basic meaning of turn.
disconnect <dis connect>		dis- the basic meaning is "away" or "spread". Often it simply means the (negative) opposite of something. Disconnect means to cut off or stop a connection. Discontinue (not continue, stop), discourage (not encourage, warn), dissimilar (not similar, unlike).
contemporary <con temporary>		con- The meaning is "with" or "together". Contemporary (e.g. artists, kings) live/d  "in the same time period". Congregation means a group of people who "come together ('gred' - go).