Root Words and Affixes

Let’s take another look at one of the longest words in the English dictionary:

antidisestablishmentarianism

The dictionary divides the word this way:

anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism

These different word parts are called morphemes. Note that the only part of this word that can stand alone is establish. For this reason, it is called the central, or free morpheme. The other parts are called affixes, or parts that are added on to the root. Affixes are either prefixes or suffixes.

Affixes are called “bound” morphemes because they can not stand alone — they have to be attached to another part of a word.

Click on the icon to learn more about affixes.