Skip to main content

etymology - Use of "-en" suffix


"Woollen" is an Old English word that uses the suffix "-en" to turn a noun into a verb. As I understand it, the use of this suffix died out in Middle English.


Do any more modern words use this suffix? Have people mixed and matched, for example taken a Latin word and added on OE suffix?


"En-" as a prefix seems to be (Old?) French in origin, so "enlighten" seems to mix it up a bit.



Answer



You're quite right.


-en as a suffix is of Saxon/German origin.
Made of. In German it is may be a bit oldish but still possible to encounter "wollen" as made of wool ("aus Wolle gemacht"), and quite common to hear "golden" (von Gold gemacht). That's for adjectives.
Plural. For noon, you would have *-en" as a Saxon plural oxen (German Ochsen) or children (Kindern, old-german and dutch Kinderen), bretheren (German: "Brudern", old G. "Bruderen").
In dialectal english you can still find "Hosen" (German "Hosen" => kind of trousers), "Shoon" (G: Shuen), "Housen" (Häusen), "Treen".
Diminutive. Vixen also (German Füchsin : little female of the Fuchs/Fox) is of Saxon origin but this time the "-en" is not the mark of plural.


en- as a prefix this time, is of Latin origin (via French). in- would be directly Latin (sometimes both forms survive : enquiry-inquiry, incase-encase). Strangely enough it also conveys a meaning of "make" as in "turn into" : enslave, enlarge (élargir) enrich (enrichir), enable, endear, endanger.
Some other en- prefixes can be traced back to Greek, enthusiasm, endemic, energy.


However, I don't think there has been a lot of inbreeding between latin "en-" prefix and words of saxon origin. And surely no (legitimate) -en suffix to non saxon words. VAX (meaning Virtual Address eXtension because it was an evolution from 16bits VA space to 32bits VA space) can probably not apply to a Saxon origin ;-).


Many sources: Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology - 1966 Ed.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more