Common prefixes and suffixes

Many English words are built from a root with a piece added to the front (a prefix) or the back (a suffix). Recognising these pieces makes unscrambling, spelling and vocabulary building much easier. If you can spot a prefix or suffix inside a jumble, you can set those letters aside and work on a shorter problem.

Useful prefixes

• re- means again or back: replay, return, rebuild.
• un- means not or the opposite of: unhappy, undo, unlock.
• in-, im-, il-, ir- mean not: inactive, impossible, illegal, irregular.
• dis- means apart or not: disagree, disconnect.
• pre- means before: preview, prepay.
• mis- means wrongly: mislead, misplace.
• over- and under- mean too much or too little, or above and below: overcook, underpay.
• sub- means under: submarine, subway.
• inter- means between: interact, international.
• anti- means against: antifreeze.

Useful suffixes

• -s, -es make plurals and third-person verbs: cats, boxes, runs.
• -ed makes many past tenses: walked, jumped.
• -ing makes the continuous form: walking, jumping.
• -er, -est compare things: faster, fastest. -er also names a person who does something: teacher, painter.
• -ly usually turns an adjective into an adverb: quick to quickly.
• -ness makes a noun from an adjective: kindness, darkness.
• -tion, -sion make nouns from verbs: action, decision.
• -ful means full of: helpful, careful. -less means without: hopeless, careless.
• -able, -ible mean able to be: readable, visible.
• -ment makes a noun: movement, payment.

Using this in word games

In Scrabble-style games, adding an S, ED or ING to a word already on the board is a classic way to score on both lines at once. When you have a long rack, try to spot a suffix first. Our unscrambler has an Ends with filter: set it to ing to see only words that finish that way.

Not every word follows the rules, and spelling can change when a suffix is added (happy becomes happiness, run becomes running). Treat these patterns as clues, not guarantees.