formative element

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a morpheme that serves as an affix, not as a base, or root, in word formation.

any noninflectional morpheme, whether base or affix.

QUIZZES

In effect, this quiz will prove whether or not you have the skills to know the difference between “affect” and “effect.”

Question 1 of 7

The rainy weather could not ________ my elated spirits on my graduation day.

First recorded in 1870–75

Very bass-y house, if I was in my element and playing what I like to play.
Idris Elba on Eric Garner, ‘Mi Mandela,’ and Selling Weed to Dave Chappelle|Marlow Stern|December 6, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It may now be time for RSD to address the violent element within his own organization.
School Shooters Love This Pickup Artist Website|Brandy Zadrozny|December 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Anne Marie was in her element, jabbering away in heavily accented Liberian English, the center of attention.
The Life of a Liberian Child with Ebola|Sarah Crowe|November 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The public cheered Holmes when she broke away from Cruise with a similar element of challenge and ingenuity.
How Can Katie Holmes Escape Tom Cruise—and ‘Dawson’s Creek’?|Tim Teeman|October 30, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Regrow limbs, cure cancer, or rock a killer outfit à la Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element.
I Want My Damn Hoverboard! 12 Movie Inventions That Should Exist|Rich Goldstein|October 25, 2014|DAILY BEAST
And now there was added to this devotion an element of indefinable anxiety which made its vigilance unceasing.
Ramona|Helen Hunt Jackson
That he might lose his head and 'introduce an element of sex' was conscience confessing that it had been already introduced.
The Wave|Algernon Blackwood
This element of symbolic indication will be found to run through the whole of childish drawing.
Children's Ways|James Sully
At once dignified, solemn, and impressive, it combined every element of grandeur.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, v. 2(of 2)|Charles Dickens
His good sense showed him how large an element of injustice entered into these hostilities.
Bastien Lepage|Fr. Crastre