English Explanatory Dictionary

-an

English dictionary entry

Meanings

suffix

Of or pertaining to; an adjectival suffix appended to various words, often nouns, to make an adjective form. (Often added to words of Latin origin, but also used with words of other origins. When a word ends in a, -n is used instead.)
Appended to nouns to form an agent noun. (When males with a profession are distinguished from females, males are -an, females -(i)enne.)

Pronunciation

/ən/

Word forms

-an more -an most -an -ans -ian -n

Etymology

From Middle English -an, regularly -ain, -ein, -en, from Old French -ain, -ein, or before i, -en (modern French -ain, -en, feminine -aine, -enne), from Latin -ānus (feminine -āna), which forms adjectives of belonging or origin from a noun, being -nus [cognate with Ancient Greek -νος (-nos)] preceded by a vowel, from Proto-Indo-European *-nós. Cognate with English -en. Compare with -in, -ine.

Synonyms

-al -ar -ese -esque -ic -id -ish -like -oid -ous -y

Translations

Hungarian: -ász Hungarian: -ész Hungarian: -ikus Interlingua: -ano Interlingua: -ana

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

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-an