Prefix

How to spell prefix

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prefix

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prefix mean?

1. nounA letter or group of letters added to the front of a word to change its meaning.
2. verbTo add something at the beginning of a word, number, or text.

Prefix in a sentence

• noun

  Adding the prefix 'un' turns 'happy' into its opposite.

• verb

  The editor asked the team to prefix each chapter with a short summary.

• noun

  The phone number listed an area prefix before the local digits.

• verb

  The system will automatically prefix every invoice with the year.

Where does prefix come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the Latin elements prae, meaning 'before' or 'in front of', and figere, meaning 'to fasten' or 'to fix in place'. The Late Latin verb praefigere therefore meant literally 'to fasten in front', and from it came the noun praefixum for something attached at the front. English adopted the term in the seventeenth century, largely as a piece of grammatical vocabulary, to name the letters fixed before a root word to change its meaning, such as 'un-' or 'pre-' itself. The same figere root is hidden inside several familiar relatives, including 'fix', 'affix', 'suffix', and 'transfix', so noticing that shared 'fix' helps lock the spelling in place. The neat detail is that the word 'prefix' actually contains the prefix 'pre-', making it a tidy example of the very thing it names.

How the word is built

• pre- (before)
• fix (from Latin figere: to fasten or fix)