Ad-

#prefix Published: 2021-11-28

In my past post, I wrote about some English expressions that remain as the same form as the original Latin (e.g., “ad infinitum”). But what about the historical formation of the English words with the prefix “ad-“? In this post, let’s take a quick look at this prefix.

The prefix “ad-“ or its variant remains in a vast number of English words. The meaning is too broad to cover all the senses generally. So, let me show some meanings roughly first, and then see their formations.

Meaning

“Ad-“ basically means “to, towards, for, near, at”, but these meanings don’t really tell us significant things. I think the OED’s explanation is thorough enough to get the point, so let me just quote them here.

In classical Latin ad- is usually combined with verbs or verbal derivatives, and adds one or more of the senses of the preposition, e.g. motion to or against (e.g. adīre (see adient adj.), aggredī : see aggress v.) or to oneself (e.g. accipere accept v.), direction towards (e.g. advertere advert v.), placing on or against (e.g. acclīnāre accline v., alligāre alligate v.), reaching (e.g. advenīre advene v., attingere attain v.), nearness or presence (e.g. adesse (see adessive adj.), alluere : see alluvion n.), attention, response (e.g. admīrārī admire v., adnuere annuate v.), adjustment (e.g. adaptāre adapt v., assuēscere : see assuete adj.), inception (e.g. adedere (see adesed adj.), adūrere adure v.), intensification (e.g. adamāre adamate v., and also the adverbs apprīmē extremely, affabrē ingeniously).

Formation

The formations are not so tricky, but this prefix can be seen almost everywhere. Let’s see how it changes before every letter. ad- changes in the following way:

• a- (before sc, sp, st)
• ac- (before c and q),
• ab-, af-, ag-, al-, an-, ap-, ar-, as-, at- (before b, f, g, l, n, p, r, s, t, respectively)
• ad- (before vowels, and the consonants d, j, h , consonantal i, m , and consonantal u, v)

In the OED, there’s no entry for the words that start with “adk-“, “adx-“. Almost no entry is found for the words that start with “adw-“, “ady-“, “adz-“.

One example for the words with “adw-“, adware (ad- + software).

For “ady-“, adynamic (a- + dynamic).

For “adz-“, adzuki (Japanese), adze¹² (origin unknown).

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