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English Suffixes: What They Are, Types, and a List With Examples
A suffix goes at the end of the word and can change its part of speech: happy (adjective) becomes happiness (noun).
Written by Bryan López, Profesor de inglés · Updated
An English suffix is a group of letters added to the end of a word, and unlike a prefix, it can change its part of speech: happy (adjective) becomes happiness (noun) or happily (adverb). Recognizing the most common suffixes helps you tell whether an unfamiliar word is a noun, adjective, verb, or adverb just by looking at its ending.
The most common suffixes by category
The key rule: a suffix changes the part of speech
Unlike a prefix, which never changes a word's part of speech, a suffix almost always does. Care is a verb or noun, but careful is an adjective and carefully is an adverb: the same root changes function depending on the suffix you add.
Recognizing the part of speech just from the ending
With practice, you can guess whether a word is a noun, adjective, or adverb just by its ending: a word ending in -tion, -ness, or -ment is almost always a noun; one ending in -ful, -less, or -ous is almost always an adjective; and almost any word ending in -ly is an adverb.
Common mistakes with suffixes
The most frequent mistake is using the wrong form of the same root: saying "I am boring" when you mean "I am bored." Both come from bore, but -ing describes something that causes the feeling and -ed describes the person who feels it. The same pattern applies to interesting/interested, confusing/confused, and many more.
Explore all 344 English suffixes
Meaning, formation, real audio pronunciation, and examples, organized by category.
A longer list of suffixes with meaning
Spelling changes when you add a suffix
Adding a suffix often changes the spelling of the root. A final -y after a consonant usually becomes -i: happy becomes happiness, beauty becomes beautiful, easy becomes easily. A final silent -e is often dropped before a suffix that begins with a vowel: create becomes creation, love becomes lovable. Short words ending in consonant-vowel-consonant double the last letter: run becomes runner, big becomes bigger. These spelling rules look complicated, but they appear in the same patterns again and again.
Word families: one root, many words
Suffixes let you build whole word families from a single root. From "act" you get act, action, active, activity, actor, actress, and actively. When you learn a new word, look for the other members of its family. You will multiply your vocabulary very quickly, and you will notice that a long word often hides a short one you already know.
Word family examples
- teach: teacher, teaching, teachable
- care: careful, careless, carefully, carelessly
- create: creative, creation, creator, creativity
- happy: unhappy, happiness, happily
- help: helpful, helpless, helper, helpfully
Wrong suffix for the function
Incorrect
She speaks very fluent and slow.
Correct
She speaks very fluently and slowly.
Frequently asked questions
What is a suffix in English?
It's a group of letters added to the end of a word that, unlike a prefix, can change its part of speech. For example, happy (adjective) becomes happiness (noun).
What are the most common English suffixes?
For nouns: -ness, -ment, -tion, -ity. For adjectives: -ful, -less, -able, -ous. For adverbs: -ly. For professions: -er, -or, -ist.
How do I know if a word is a noun or an adjective from its ending?
Endings like -tion, -ness, and -ment almost always signal a noun. Endings like -ful, -less, and -ous almost always signal an adjective. Almost any word ending in -ly is an adverb.
Why do people mix up "boring" and "bored"?
Because both come from the same root (bore) but with different suffixes: -ing describes what causes the feeling ("This movie is boring") and -ed describes the person who feels it ("I am bored"). The same pattern repeats with interesting/interested and confusing/confused.
Why is it useful to learn English suffixes?
It lets you identify a new word's part of speech just from its ending, and correctly form nouns, adjectives, and adverbs from the same root.
Are -ing and -ed suffixes?
Yes, they are inflectional suffixes: they do not create a new word but change the form of a verb (work, working, worked). The suffixes in the table above are derivational because they create new words.
Can a word have more than one suffix?
Yes. "Unhappiness" has a prefix (un-) and a suffix (-ness). "Carelessly" has two suffixes: -less and -ly. The order matters: each one is added on top of the previous word.
Do suffixes change the part of speech?
Yes, most of the time. Adding -ness to happy creates a noun (happiness), and adding -ly creates an adverb (happily). Prefixes usually do not change the part of speech.
Explore all 344 English suffixes
Meaning, formation, real audio pronunciation, and examples, organized by category.
Keep learning
- English Prefixes: What They Are, Types, and a List With ExamplesA prefix goes before the word and changes its meaning, not its part of speech: happy becomes unhappy is still an adjective.
- False Cognates in English and Spanish: What They Are, With ExamplesA false cognate is a word that looks like a word in the other language but means something completely different, like embarrassed and embarazada.
- Flashcards to Learn English: How to Use Them So They Actually WorkFlashcards only work if you use spaced repetition: reviewing everything at once doesn't help, you need to review right before you forget.