It is said that knowledge of Latin will help your understanding of English. That’s true, but it can also be the other way around. And the Latin prefixes are a good example of this because most of them are commonly found in English.
English isn’t a Romance
language; it wasn’t derived from Latin, but from the languages of the Germanic
tribes that occupied Britain around the time the Romans left in the early 5th
century. However, the English language acquired a massive treasure
of vocabulary, most of which was indirectly derived
from Latin through Old French after the Norman Conquest and many of
them had a long journey before they reached English.
As mentioned in the previous
post, most of the Latin words listed below can be either prepositions
or prefixes. However, this post isn’t about whether they are
prepositions or prefixes, but what they mean.
Some of the Latin words
listed can have several meanings but it’s best, I think, to start with the
basics.
Seeing how they connect
to English derivatives can help a lot in remembering
their meanings. I learned all of these by using the derivatives.
In other words …
Seeing how they join with words
that have come down from Latin to English can help a lot in
bringing their meanings back again into your mind.
ab: away │ absent
ante: before │ ante-natal
clinic
ad: near; towards (also ac-,
af- as a prefix) │ acquire; affect; advertise
circum: around │ circumnavigate; circumference
contrā: against │ contradict
cum [preposition]: with >
prefix: con-, com-, col- │ conference; committee; collect
dē: [i] about; concerning │describe; depict
[ii] down / away from │ descend; depart; de-ice
the car
dis: apart │ disband; discuss; dissect
ex: out of │export; ex-wife
extrā: outside │ extra-curricular
in: in(to) │ inspect; invade; import
in- / im- / il- used to
create opposite meanings: indefinite; impossible; illogical
inter: between │ international
intrō: inwards; within
│ introverted
per: through │perceive; permanent
i.e. it stays through to the end; peruse i.e.
look through something (usually in detail)
prae: before; in front of
│ prehistoric; pre-war; preposition i.e. a
group of letters placed in front of another word
prō: before in front of; in
a forward direction │ propose; progress
post: after │ post-natal
clinic; post-war
re: again │ redo; reread; rewrite
sub: under │ submarine
super: above │ supernatural
trāns: across │ transport
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