Pejorative suffix  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Related e

Wikipedia
Wiktionary
Shop


Featured:

A pejorative suffix is a suffix that attaches a negative meaning to the word or word-stem preceding it. There is frequent overlap between this and the diminutive form.

The pejorative suffix may add the sense of "a despicable example of the preceding," as in Spanish -ejo (see below). It can also convey the sense of "a despicable human having the preceding characteristic"; for instance, as in English -el (see below) or the development of the word cuckold from Old French cocu "cuckoo" + -ald, taken into Anglo-Saxon as cokewald and thus to the modern English word.

Examples of the pejorative suffix:

Contents

Basque

-txo <ref>Amazon.ca: The Basque History of the World: Books: Mark Kurlansky</ref>

Catalan

-alla -alles Suffixed to nouns gives new nouns. Examples: gentalla (from gent "people"). It's also used as a collective (group) suffix.

-arro -arros (fem. -arra -arres) Suffixed to nouns gives new nouns. Example: veuarra (from veu "voice"). It's also used as an augmentative suffix.

-astre -astres (fem. -astra -astres) Suffixed to nouns gives new nouns. Example: poetastra (from poeta "poet"). This suffix has also the meaning "indirect relation with".

-ot -ots (fem. -ota -otes) Suffixed to nouns gives new nouns. Example: sabatot (from sabata "shoe"). Suffixed to adjectives gives new adjectives. Example: lletjot (from lleig "ugly"). As a suffix it also means "object", giving a lexicalized word.

Dutch

-erd, e.g. stouterd "naughty one" (from stout "naughty")

-erik, e.g. viezerik "filthy person" (from vies "dirty")

English

-ar, e.g. beggar

-ard, e.g. bastard (from Old French bast "pack-saddle", i.e. "child born in a pack-saddle"); coward, drunkard.

-aster, e.g. poetaster, philosophaster (via Latin)

-el, e.g. wastrel (from "waste", i.e. "a wasteful person (pej.)")

-ista e.g. fashionista (sometimes used as a more '"playful" pejorative than others, likely a play on "fascista" which is Italian for "fascist" less likely taken from Sandinista)

-nik, e.g. peacenik, neatnik (via Yiddish or Russian, where it is not necessarily pejorative)

Esperanto

-aĉ-, e.g. veteraĉo "foul weather" (from vetero "weather")

French

-ald/-ard/-aud, e.g. salaud "dirty person (from sale "dirt")

Hawaiian

-ā (-wā), e.g. lonoā "gossip" (from lono "news")

-ea, e.g. poluea "seasickness" (from polu "wet)

Italian

-accio(a) (or -uccio/a), e.g. boccaccia "ugly mug" (from bocca "mouth")

Japanese

-目 (-me), e.g. 「化け物目」 (bakemono-me) "That damn monster!" or 「可愛いやつ目」 kawaii yatsu-me "That darn cutie!"

Latin

-aster, denoting fraudulent resemblance, e.g. patraster "one who plays the father" (from pater "father")

Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin)

-ish, e.g. animosh "dog"<ref>Anishinaabemowin</ref>

Provençal

-asso, e.g. vidasso "wretched life" (from vido "life")

Russian

-iška (ишка) <ref>Tore Nesset "Ideology in inflection"</ref>

-uxa (уха), e.g. černuxa, dramatic term for an unrelentingly bleak cinematic style (from čern- "black")

Spanish

-aco(a), e.g. pajarraco "large ugly bird" (from pajaro "bird)

-ejo(a), e.g. lugarejo "podunk town" (from lugar "place") and librejo "worthless book" (from libro "book"); however, -ejo can also show endearment, as in festejo.

-ote(a), e.g. discursote "long dull speech" (from discurso "speech")(used mostly as an augmentative)

-ucho (a), e.g. casucha "hovel" (from casa "house")

-zuelo (a), e. g. mujerzuela "whore" (from mujer "woman")





Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Pejorative suffix" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Personal tools