morpheme

American  

[mawr-feem] / ˈmɔr fim /

noun

Linguistics.

1. any of the minimal grammatical units of a language, each constituting a word or meaningful part of a word, that cannot be divided into smaller independent grammatical parts, as the, write, or the -ed of waited.

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morpheme British  

/ ˈmɔːfiːm /

noun

1. linguistics a speech element having a meaning or grammatical function that cannot be subdivided into further such elements

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Other Word Forms

• morphemic adjective
• morphemically adverb

Etymology

Origin of morpheme

1895–1900; < French morphème; morph-, -eme

Compare meaning

How does morpheme compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• morpheme vs. phoneme

Explanation

In linguistics, the smallest unit of language or grammar is called a morpheme. You can break words down into morphemes — like the -s at the end of a noun that tells you it's plural or the -ly at the end of a word that shows it's an adverb. While some words can be divided into two or more morphemes, others consist of a single morpheme. The word dog, for example, is considered a "free" morpheme, because it can stand alone. Prefixes and suffixes like un- and -ing, are "bound" morphemes, dependent for meaning on other morphemes. A linguist coined the word in 1895, modeling it after phoneme, "distinct unit of sound," and adding the Greek morphe, "form or shape."

Example Sentences

Important, too, was the morpheme a-, which referred to the mouth and, more broadly, to origins.

From Scientific American • Jun. 14, 2023

For example, the morpheme er-, which qualified most anything having to do with an outer body part, could be stuck to -cho to yield ercho, meaning “head.”

From Scientific American • Jun. 14, 2023

Each of the, say, two hundred and fifty passengers on each flight hanging unwittingly on each morpheme.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 12, 2017

Related Words

• concept
• expression
• name
• phrase
• sound
• term