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5406 entries found
-s (2)
third person singular present indicative suffix of verbs, it represents Old English -es, -as, which began to replace -eð in Northumbrian 10c., and gradually spread south until by Shakespeare's time it had emerged from colloquialism and -eth began to be limited to more dignified speeches.
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-s (1)
suffix forming almost all Modern English plural nouns, gradually extended in Middle English from Old English -as, the nominative plural and accusative plural ending of certain "strong" masculine nouns (such as dæg "day," nominative/accusative plural dagas "days"). The commonest Germanic declension, traceable back to the original PIE inflection system, it is also the source of the Dutch -s plurals and (by rhotacism) Scandinavian -r plurals (such as Swedish dagar).

Much more uniform today than originally; Old English also had a numerous category of "weak" nouns that formed their plurals in -an, and other strong nouns that formed plurals with -u. Quirk and Wrenn, in their Old English grammar, estimate that 45 percent of the nouns a student will encounter will be masculine, nearly four-fifths of them with genitive singular -es and nominative/accusative plural in -as. Less than half, but still the largest chunk.

The triumphs of -'s possessives and -s plurals represent common patterns in language: using only a handful of suffixes to do many jobs (such as -ing), and the most common variant squeezing out the competition. To further muddy the waters, it's been extended in slang since 1936 to singulars (such as ducks, sweets, babes) as an affectionate or diminutive suffix.

Old English single-syllable collectives (sheep, folk) as well as weights, measures, and units of time did not use -s. The use of it in these cases began in Middle English, but the older custom is preserved in many traditional dialects (ten pound of butter; more than seven year ago; etc.).
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-saurus 
element used in forming dinosaur names, from Latinized form of Greek sauros "lizard," a word of unknown origin; possibly related to saulos "twisting, wavering."
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-sch- 
this letter group can represent five distinct sounds in English; it first was used by Middle English writers to render Old English sc-, the pronunciation of which then simplified to "-sh-" (an evolution that also took place in Middle Dutch and Middle High German). Sometimes it was miswritten for -ch-. It also was taken in from German (schnapps) and Yiddish (schlemiel). In words derived from classical languages, it represents Latin sch-, Greek skh- but in some of these words (such as schism) the English spelling is a restoration and the pronunciation does not follow it.
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-scope 
word-forming element indicating "an instrument for seeing," from Late Latin -scopium, from Greek -skopion, from skopein "to look at, examine" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe").
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-scopy 
word-forming element meaning "viewing, examining, observing," from Modern Latin -scopium, from Greek -skopion, from skopein "to look at, examine" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe").
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-ship 

word-forming element meaning "quality, condition; act, power, skill; office, position; relation between," Middle English -schipe, from Old English -sciepe, Anglian -scip "state, condition of being," from Proto-Germanic *-skepi- (cognates: Old Norse -skapr, Danish -skab, Old Frisian -skip, Dutch -schap, German -schaft), from *skap- "to create, ordain, appoint," from PIE root *(s)kep-, forming words meaning "to cut, scrape, hack" (see shape (v.)).

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-sis 
suffix in Greek-derived nouns denoting action, process, state, condition, from Greek -sis, which is identical in meaning with Latin -entia, English -ing (1).
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-sk 
reflexive suffix in words of Danish origin (such as bask, literally "to bathe oneself"), contracted from Old Norse sik, reflexive pronoun corresponding to Gothic sik, Old High German sih, German sich "himself, herself, itself," from PIE root *s(w)e- (source of Latin se "himself;" see idiom).
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-some (1)

word-forming element used in making adjectives from nouns or adjectives (and sometimes verbs) and meaning "tending to; causing; to a considerable degree," from Old English -sum, identical with some, from PIE root *sem- (1) "one; as one, together with." Cognate with Old Frisian -sum, German -sam, Old Norse -samr; also related to same. "It usually indicates the possession of a considerable degree of the quality named: as mettlesome, full of mettle or spirit; gladsome, very glad or joyous" [Century Dictionary]. For the -some used with numbers (twosome, foursome, etc.), see -some (2).

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