-ile

#etymology #suffix Published: 2021-12-05

The other day, I wrote about the Latin word “facilis” that means “easy” in this post. In Latin, facilis is the combination of “faciō” (I do or I make) and the suffix “-ilis” (or “-īlis”). This suffix often forms an adjective that means “able to be done” or “that may be done”. To put it another way, this suffix “-ilis” works in the similar way as “-bilis”, the origin of “-(a)ble” in English.

Therefore, the meaning of facilis can be understood as “able to be done or made”. In English, this suffix appears in the form “-ile” or “-il”. Applying the same logic, we can understand the formation of some more words such as “fossil”, “agile”, “fragile”, and “docile”.

fossil

The “foss” part comes from the stem of the Latin word “fodiō”, meaning “I dig”. Thus, fossil can be interpreted as “that may be dug”. Today, it usually means “something preserved in the ground, especially in petrified form in rock”.

agile

The Latin verb “agō” basically means “I act” and has a great many descendants in English, one of which is “agile”. The meaning of agile can be considered as “able to be acted or moved (easily)”, which results in today’s meaning “able to move quickly”.

fragile

“That may be broken”, with the Latin “frangō”, meaning “I break” (seen in “fracture”).

docile

“Able to be taught”, with “doceō” meaning “I teach” (seen in “doctor”). Docile today is also used simply to mean “easy to control” (not about teaching).