ShmoopTube

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[Coop and Dino singing]

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Tree roots are pretty awesome. [Image of tree's roots beneath the soil]

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Without them, we…well…we wouldn't have trees!

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Because while we don't often think about them – or even see them – without those roots

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twisting and stretching underneath the earth, a tree wouldn't be much of a tree at all. [Boy punches an inflatable tree]

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And trees aren't the only thing that have important roots!

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Words do, too.

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A word's root is just what it sounds like: it's the most basic part of the word, or the

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base of its meaning. [Coop discussing the roots of words]

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Affixes are then added either before the root––we call those prefixes––or after the root––suffixes––to

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make the complete word.

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And some words even have both prefixes and suffixes. [Boy with root shirt and girl and boy appear either side of him]

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Confused?

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Yeah, we kind of are too…

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Good thing we've got some examples!

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Though it'd be an even better thing if we had some sort of magical, "understand everything [Man throwing things from a chest in the attic]

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in the universe," potion!

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…No?

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That doesn't exist.

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Huh.

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How disappointing. [Man holding an old hair brush]

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Okay, for now, we'll stick with examples…

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Take the root “bene.”

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Doesn't look like much of a word right now, does it? [Girl thinking about the word 'Bene']

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Well the root bene means “good.”

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Add a suffix to it, and voila, we've got "beneficial," a word which means “good for people, or

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for other living things."

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Or we have "benefactor," which is someone who gives money to help support other people [Man holding stacks of money]

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or causes.

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Or even "benefit," which is an advantage gained from something.

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All good, or bene things!

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So let's talk about prefixes for a moment.

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A prefix is a letter or letters added to the start of a word to indicate additional meaning. [Coop discussing prefixes]

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For example, the prefix in the word prefix is “pre-” which means before.

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So anytime you see a word beginning with “pre,” you can bet it's talking about something that [Two men hitting each other with bags]

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happened beforehand, or prior to!

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Think of a few words beginning with pre.

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Previous, prehistoric, preschool, predict.

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All beginning with with the prefix “pre” and all talking about “before” something

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else happened.

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As for suffixes, those are a letter or letters that get added to the end of a word to indicate [Dino discussing suffixes]

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additional meaning..

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For example, the suffix “-er” means one who does something described by the root.

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A writer writes, a builder builds, a swimmer swims. [Person swimming in a pool]

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You get the drift.

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However, all that being said, roots, prefixes and suffixes can have more than one meaning,

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but for the most part, understanding the meaning of roots and affixes can be useful in figuring

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out what unfamiliar words mean.

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And of course, if you're ever just totally stuck on a word, there's always your handy-dandy [Girl reading a dictionary]

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dictionary, which has pretty much every single word in the English language.

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Except for the word “kermuphalump.”

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Because that's not a real word.

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Or is it, and we just don't know because we haven't used that magical potion yet…? [Man searching wooden chest for magic potion]

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The world may never know.

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