# suffix

/ˈsəfɪks/ (US) · /sˈʌfɪks/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/suffix
Updated: 2026-08-27

## Senses

### 1. grammar

noun · CEFR B2 · Technical

a letter or group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning or its part of speech.

For teachers: an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. It can be derivational, changing the word class, or inflectional, indicating grammatical features like tense or number.

- In the word 'happiness', the suffix is '-ness', which turns the adjective into a noun.
- The student struggled to identify whether the suffix was purely inflectional or if it altered the semantic core of the lexeme.

Usage: Commonly used in linguistics and language learning to describe word formation.

### 2. computing/math

noun · CEFR C1 · Technical

a character or string of characters added to the end of a sequence.

For teachers: a final segment or sequence of characters appended to a string, or a subscript used in mathematical notation.

- The file name has a '.txt' suffix so the computer knows it is a text document.
- The algorithm identifies the longest common suffix between two strings to determine their structural similarity.

## Examples

- The suffix '-ness' turns the adjective 'happy' into a noun.
- When learning new vocabulary, identifying the suffix can help you guess if a word is a verb, noun, or adjective.
- Linguistic analysis of the document revealed several archaic suffixes that are no longer productive in modern English, suggesting the text was written several centuries ago.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.