Read the information below and then access the following  HBA Quizzes and follow the directions.

 

Knowing the Roots

At least half of the words in the English language are derived from Greek and Latin roots. Knowing these roots helps us to grasp the meaning of words before we look them up in the dictionary. It also helps us to see how words are often arranged in families with similar characteristics.

For instance, we know that sophomores are students in their second year of college or high school. What does it mean, though, to be sophomoric? The "sopho" part of the word comes from the same Greek root that gives us philosophy, which we know means "love of knowledge." The "ic" ending is sometimes added to adjectival words in English, but the "more" part of the word comes from the same Greek root that gives us moron. Thus sophomores are people who think they know a lot but really don't know much about anything, and a sophomoric act is typical of a "wise fool," a "smart-ass"!

Let's explore further. Going back to philosophy, we know the "sophy" part is related to knowledge and the "phil" part is related to love (because we know that Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love and that a philodendron loves shady spots). What, then, is philanthropy? "Phil" is still love, and "anthropy" comes from the same Greek root that gives us anthropology, which is the study ("logy," we know, means study of any kind) of anthropos, humankind. So a philanthropist must be someone who loves humans and does something about it—like giving money to find a cure for cancer or to build a Writing Center for the local community college. (And an anthropoid, while we're at it, is an animal who walks like a human being.) Learning the roots of our language can even be fun!

Some common Greek and Latin roots:

	Root (source)	Meaning	English words
	aster, astr (G)	star	astronomy, astrology
	audi (L)	to hear	audible, auditorium
	bene (L)	good, well	benefit, benevolent
	bio (G)	life	biology, autobiography
	dic, dict (L)	to speak	dictionary, dictator
	fer (L)	to carry	transfer, referral
	fix (L)	to fasten	fix, suffix, affix
	geo (G)	earth	geography, geology
	graph (G)	to write	graphic, photography
	jur, just (L)	law	jury, justice
	log, logue (G)	word, thought, speech	monolog(ue), astrology, biology, neologism
	luc (L)	light	lucid, translucent
	manu (L)	hand	manual, manuscript
	meter, metr (G)	measure	metric, thermometer
	op, oper (L)	work	operation, operator
	path (G)	feeling	pathetic, sympathy, empathy
	ped (G)	child	pediatrics, pedophile
	phil (G)	love	philosophy, Anglophile
	phys (G)	body, nature	physical, physics
	scrib, script (L)	to write	scribble, manuscript
	tele (G)	far off	telephone,television
	ter, terr (L)	earth	territory, extraterrestrial
	vac (L)	empty	vacant, vacuum, evacuate
	verb (L)	word	verbal, verbose
	vid, vis (L)	to see	video, vision, television

Authority for this chart: The Little, Brown Handbook by H. Ramsay Fowler and Jane E. Aaron, & Kay Limburg. 6th ed. HarperCollins: New York. 1995. By permission of Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

Learning Prefixes and Suffixes

Knowing the Greek and Latin roots of several prefixes and suffixes (beginning and endings attached to words) can also help us determine the meaning of words. Ante, for instance, means before, and if we connect bellum with belligerant to figure out the connection with war, we'll know that antebellum refers to the period before war. (In the United States, the antebellum period is our history before the Civil War.)

Prefixes showing quantity
	Meaning	Prefixes in English Words
	half	semiannual, hemisphere
	one	unicycle, monarchy, monorail
	two	binary, bimonthly, dilemma, dichotomy
	hundred	century, centimeter, hectoliter
	thousand	millimeter, kilometer
Prefixes showing negation
	without, no, not	asexual, anonymous, illegal, immoral, invalid, irreverent, unskilled
	not, absence of, opposing, against	nonbreakable, antacid, antipathy, contradict
	opposite to, complement to	counterclockwise, counterweight
	do the opposite of, remove, reduce	dehorn, devitalize, devalue
	do the opposite of, deprive of	disestablish, disarm
	wrongly, bad	misjudge, misdeed
Prefixes showing time
	before	antecedent, forecast, precede, prologue
	after	postwar
	again	rewrite, redundant
Prefixes showing direction or position
	above, over	supervise, supererogatory
	across, over	transport, translate
	below, under	infrasonic, infrastructure, subterranean, hypodermic
	in front of	proceed, prefix
	behind	recede
	out of	erupt, explicit, ecstasy
	into	injection, immerse, encourage, empower
	around	circumnavigate, perimeter
	with	coexist, colloquy, communicate, consequence, correspond, sympathy, synchronize

Authority for this table: The Little, Brown Handbook by H. Ramsay Fowler and Jane E. Aaron, & Kay Limburg. 6th ed. HarperCollins: New York. 1995. By permission of Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

Suffixes, on the other hand, modify the meaning of a word and frequently determine its function within a sentence. Take the noun nation, for example. With suffixes, the word becomes the adjective national, the adverb nationally, and the verb nationalize.

See what words you can come up with that use the following suffixes.

• Typical noun suffixes are -ence, -ance, -or, -er, -ment, -list, -ism, -ship, -ency, -sion, -tion, -ness, -hood, -dom
  
• Typical verb suffixes are -en, -ify, -ize, -ate
  
• Typical adjective suffixes are -able, -ible, -al, -tial, -tic, -ly, -ful, -ous, -tive, -less, -ish, -ulent
• The adverb suffix is -ly (although not all words that end in -ly are adverbs—like friendly)

Using Your Dictionary

The dictionary should be one of the most often used books in your home. (We'll allow room for sacred texts here.) Place the dictionary somewhere so that you can find it immediately and use it often. If you do your reading and homework in the kitchen and the dictionary is on a shelf in the den or bedroom, it's too tempting to say "I'll look it up next time."

From the following site: ttp://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAR/vocabulary.htm