If you want to do well in IELTS, you need to have a good vocabulary, and that means you need to understand something called word formation. In this article, you will learn the fundamentals of word formation and how it can boost your vocabulary, leading to a better IELTS score.
Table of Contents
What is Word Formation?
First of all, let’s think about what word formation means. This term relates to how words are made of different parts. To put it another way: it’s how words are formed. For example:
- Happy
- Unhappy
- Happiness
- Unhappiness
- Happier
- Happiest
Examples of Word Formation from “Happy”
The above six words are all closely linked. That’s because they all stem from the first word: “happy.” However, due to their formation, they have taken on different meanings.
- Unhappy – the prefix “un-” is negative, so this means the same as “not happy.”
- Happiness – the suffix “-iness” usually refers to a state of being and it is a noun, so this means “the state of being happy.”
- Unhappiness – we can now see the prefix “un-” and the suffix “iness,” resulting “the state of being not happy.”
- Happier – the suffix –“-ier” is used to make the comparative adjective form for certain words. It means “more happy” here.
- Happiest – the suffix “-iest” is used to make the superlative adjective form for certain words. It means “the most happy” here.
Benefits of Learning Word Formation
This is a simple way to understand word formation. As you can see, it is quite useful for expanding your vocabulary because if you learned one word (“happy”) and then began looking into related terms with an understanding of word formation, you would have learned six words instead of just one.
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Common Prefixes and Suffixes
We saw above the use of prefixes and suffixes. Here are some more examples:
| Prefixes | Suffixes |
|---|---|
| semi- (semicircle, semi-formal) multi- (multitask, multicultural) poly- (polyglot, polygon) hyper- (hyperactive, hypersensitive) super- (superhuman, supernatural) ultra- (ultrasound, ultramodern) pre- (preview, preheat) post- (postpone, postwar) re- (redo, rewrite) fore- (foresee, forewarn) | -ist (artist, scientist) -ian (musician, historian) -ment (enjoyment, development) -ship (friendship, leadership) -hood (childhood, neighborhood) -ous (dangerous, famous) -ful (hopeful, wonderful) -less (fearless, careless) -ify (simplify, classify) -ate (activate, dominate) |
Exploring “-ologist” Vocabulary
Sometimes it can be helpful to look at a common suffix, try to understand it, and then learn examples of words containing it. For example, let’s look at the suffix “-ologist,” meaning someone who professionally studies a kind of science:
- biologist
- embryologist
- geologist
- gynaecologist
- myologist
- neurologist
- oncologist
- urologist
- virologist
You can look at words like these and start to figure out their meanings. First, you would look at the part you easily recognise: “-ologist.” Then, often you can take a guess at the first part. You might recognise “neuro-” from other related words, like neurodivergent and neurology. It means “relating to the brain,” so “neurologist” is a “brain scientist.”
Word Formation and Parts of Speech
Oftentimes, word formation helps you to understand the part of speech used. That’s really important because it can help you not only with vocabulary but also with grammar. Here are a few more examples:
| Noun | Verb | Adjective | Adverb |
| Width | Widen | Wide | Widely |
| Height | Heighten | High | Highly |
| Depth | Deepen | Deep | Deeply |
| Shortness | Shorten | Short | Shortly |
Note the patterns in the above words. The nouns are quite different but the verbs end in “-en.” The adjectives are adapted from the nouns and the adverbs are the adjectives with an “-ly” suffix. Understanding this can help you figure out what part of speech is used, leading to better grammar.
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Compound Words
Word formation is not limited simply to prefixes and suffixes, although these are undoubtedly important to know. There are other ways words are put together. For example, we often compound two words into a single word:
- Blackboard (it’s a board that’s black)
- bookshelf (it’s a shelf for books)
- website (it’s a site on the web)
- shopkeeper (it’s a keeper of a shop)
- car park (it’s a place to park a car)
- greenhouse (it’s a house for green things)
- bathroom (it’s a room with a bath in it)
- windscreen (it’s a screen to keep out the wind)
- sunflower (it’s a flower that resembles and is drawn towards the sun)
It’s useful to recognise these words and their origin forms because it can help you to understand ones you do not know well.
Shortened Word Forms
Another element of word formation is the shortening of certain words, such as:
- telephone -> phone
- website 🡪 site
- photograph 🡪 photo
- limousine 🡪 limo
- vegetable 🡪 veggie
- advertisement 🡪 advert 🡪 ad
- information 🡪 info
- introduction 🡪 intro
- application 🡪 app
Somes these are very easy to figure out but sometimes they can be harder. In any case, they are useful to know. (By the way, the shortened form is usually going to be used in IELTS speaking and the longer form is going to be used in IELTS writing.)
Conclusion
Altogether, word formation is important to understand when you learn English and prepare for an exam such as IELTS. The reason is that it can help expand your vocabulary so that you understand what others say and can also use language more accurately and appropriately to express yourself.
