It’s All Greek to Me: Greek Prefixes and Suffixes in English

Knowing a bit of Greek can be very useful when reading and writing English, since so many English words come from or were adapted from Greek. In this post I provide some examples and explain some Greek prefixes and suffixes and words formed from them.¹

Most English speakers know a lot of Greek prefixes already. The prefixes “anti-,” “bi-,” “dys-,” “hyper-,” “mega-,” “micro-,” and “pro-” probably need no explanation. Consider the common words “antiwar,” “bicoastal,” “dysfunctional,” “hypersensitive,” “megahit,” “microtarget,” and “proactive.” In all these instances, a Greek prefix is attached to a word from another language. While some prefixes are familiar, others perhaps are not. Some less commonly known Greek prefixes include the following:

“ana-” (“up”; e.g., “analysis,” “to break up”)

“apo-” (“far away from”; e.g., “apogee,” “far from the earth”)

“cata-” (“down or bad”; e.g., “catastrophe,” “a downturn”)

“epi-” (“on”; e.g., “epidemic,” “on the people”)

“palin-” (“backward”; e.g., “palindrome,” “to run backward”)

Similarly, most English speakers know a lot of Greek suffixes already. Consider “-arch,” “-graph,” “-phile,” “-phone,” and “-trope.” These are familiar in words like “patriarch,” “autograph,” “telephone,” and “heliotrope.” Suffixes like “-mania,” “-phile,” and “-phobe” are also widely used and are often attached to non-Greek words. Consider “Beatlemania,” “anglophile,” and “germophobe.” You might be surprised to learn that some other common English suffixes are actually Greek, such as the following:

“-ad” (“about or having a connection with”; e.g., “Iliad,” “a poem about Ilium” [that is, Troy])

“-oid” (“like” or “having the shape of”; e.g., “android,” “like a human”)²

“-ous” (“full of”; e.g., “portentous,” “full of portent”)

“-ite” (“inhabitant of”; e.g., “Brooklynite,” “an inhabitant of Brooklyn”)

“-ize” (“to make or to do something”; e.g., “theorize,” “to make into a theory”)

Notes

1. See Damen for more Greek prefixes and suffixes and their uses in English.
2. See also our previous post about the precise meanings of words like factoid and android and why those meanings are important to know.

Work Cited

Damen, Mark. “Greek Prefixes.” Utah State University, www.usu.edu/markdamen/wordpower/handouts/gkaffix.pdf. Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.