WORD PARTS: letter sequences that always stay the same.

Here is the podcast version of this article.

Memorizing word parts is one of the best short cuts to increasing your vocabulary that I know of because while some word parts are recycled in dozens of words, others show up in hundreds of words, and a very few are ever used in thousands of words, though many of those are technical terms that we will never use. 

For instance, if I see the word telekinesis, I may have no idea what it means, but I have seen that -tele- part or sequence before in words such as television, telephone, and telescope -- all inventions that bring information to me from a distance. And that's what - tele- means: distant, far away, remote. (Telekinesis, by the way, is the supposed ability to move things without touching them by using your mind alone -- manipulation from a distance.)

This is why memorizing common word parts will increase your vocabulary: memorize them once, and every time they show up in a new word, you'll know at least half the meaning of that word, and you may be able to figure out the full meaning by studying the word's context -- the surrounding ideas and examples.

As an example, let's review a few useful word parts that you probably already know.

ANTE- means before, earlier, in front of

·      antedate, antecedent, antemeridian, antenatal, antebellum

ANTI- means against or opposed 

·      antifreeze, antiperspirant, antiseptic, antisocial, antiwar

HYPER- means over, above, excessive, intense

·      hyperactive, hyperexcitable, hyperconfident, hyperacidic, hyperbaric 

    HYPO- means under, lower, deficient

·      hypodermic, hypoactive, hypoxia, hypochondria, hypocrite, hypothesis

MACRO- means large, long, great in scale

·      macrocosm, macrobiotic, macrophage, macroeconomics, macroclimate

MICRO- means small, short, reduced in scale

·      microscope, microgram, microorganism, microphone, micropolitical

 

You'll find a useful and free list of word parts by looking up "common word parts" at The Writing Center at Southern Illinois University. Their list includes common prefixes (word parts at the beginning of a word), suffixes (word parts at the end of a word), and roots (word parts that come somewhere inside a word).
https://write.siu.edu/_common/documents/handouts/common-word-parts.pdf

MEDICAL
https://openmd.com/dictionary/medical-word-parts

https://www.tsc.fl.edu/media/divisions/learning-commons/resources-by-subject/science/anatomy-and-physiology/bsc2085/Terminology.pdf

 

But I have to issue a warning: word parts can sometimes be deceptive. Some word parts that are spelled the same or sound the same may come from totally different sources. Let's run through a couple of examples, then talk about what you can do to protect yourself. 

Let's consider the word part -ped-.

You already know that a pediatrician is a doctor who treats young children. And if you have ever owned a bicycle or driven a car, you know how to work the pedals with your feet. Obviously, the letter sequence -ped- appears in both words, but they are not at all connected. 

The -ped- in pediatrician comes from a Greek word that meant a child. It also shows up in words such as pediatrics (the branch of medicine that deals with children), pedagogy (the art of teaching youngsters), pedodontics (the branch of dentistry that specializes in children's teeth), and encyclopedia (a comprehensive educational work). 

But then there's the word pedal. The -ped- letter sequence there comes from a different Greek word that means foot. That meaning shows up in words such as pedicure (treatment of the foot), centipede (an insect with many feet), pedestrian (someone on foot), and pedometer (an app that tells you how many steps you have taken today).

So when you come across a new word containing the word part -ped-, how do you know if it refers to a child or to a foot? The unfortunate answer is that you can't tell just by looking at the spelling. You have to consider the context -- the ideas that surround the word that you're trying to decipher. So if you encounter a sentence that says, "Some statues have a pediform base rather than a square base," you can sense that it's talking about the shape of a foot, not the shape of a child. And if all else fails, you can always turn to a dictionary, especially an unabridged dictionary for technical or scientific words. If the word contains a recycled word part, you'll find that information in brackets (the square enclosure marks) at the end of the dictionary entry. 

Because context and word parts are dependent on one another, I've posted another podcast called CONTEXT, and I invite you to check it out.

Here is the text version of the Context article.