Prefix · former / outward
Signals a former role or outward movement: ex-president, exit, export, exclude, expand.
Written by Bryan López, English teacher · Updated
Ex- has two uses. The first is to talk about someone or something that was one thing before and no longer is: a person who had a position, a relationship or a job. When it is attached to a position or a relationship, English writes it with a hyphen, as in ex-president or ex-wife.
The second use comes from the Latin ex, "out of", and shows movement toward the outside: taking out, going out, leaving out, expanding. These words are not written with a hyphen, and many no longer feel like words with a prefix, because we learn them whole. To know which use it is, look at the hyphen and at the context.
Two distinct uses with different hyphen conventions:
The hyphen rule matters: ex- meaning "former" takes a hyphen; ex- meaning "outward" does not. "Export" and "ex-president" are both correct but follow different spelling conventions.
ex-/ɛks/
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The hyphen is required when ex- means "former": ex-president, ex-wife, ex-CEO. Without the hyphen the word is not standard.
"Exit" works as a noun ("the emergency exit," "take the next exit") and as a verb ("please exit the building"). Both uses are very common.
A trick to remember it
Picture someone walking out the door: ex- = out, already left. ex-president, exit.
Exercise 1 · Form the word
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
"Please use the nearest ___ in case of an emergency and do not use the elevators."
Exercise 3 · Pick the right one
When does ex- take a hyphen?
The prefix ex- signals a former role or outward movement: ex-president, exit, export, exclude, expand.
The prefix ex- is pronounced /ɛks/. For example, "ex-president".
"president" becomes "ex-president". It is a typical example of the ex- prefix.
un-, re-, pre-, dis-, over-, in-... every beginning you need to unlock thousands of English words at once.