Base word + affix
bake – baked, baker,
bakery, unbaked
care – careful, careless, uncaring, carefully
happy – happiness, happily, unhappy, unhappiness
spell – respell, spelling, spelled, misspell
Examples of Latin Roots
dict (to say) – predict, diction, dictate,
dictation, unpredictable, predictable, contradict
ject (throw) – subject, object, deject,
project, reject, inject, eject
port (to carry) – transport, report, deport,
import, export, portable
spect (to look) – spectator, inspect,
prospect, suspect, inspector, speculation
Examples of Greek roots
graph (writing) – photograph, autograph,
biography, graphic, telegraph, phonograph
chron (time) – chronology, chronological,
chronicle, synchrony, chronic
photo (light) – photograph, photosynthesis,
telephoto, photography
meter (measure) – metric, kilometer, barometer,
thermometer, geometry, symmetry
When students know the meanings of some common Latin and Greek roots, they can determine the meaning of new words. Let's look at some of these words and discover the meaning.
Auto (self) + bio (life) + graph (writing) + y = autobiography (writing about one's own life)
Tele (far) + phon (sound) = telephone (device to hear sound from far away)
Thermo (heat) + meter (measure) = thermometer (device that measures heat)