morpheme

[ mawr-feem ]
See synonyms for: morphememorphemes on Thesaurus.com

nounLinguistics.
  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.: Compare allomorph (def. 2), morph (def. 1).

Origin of morpheme

1
1895–1900; <French morphème;see morph-, -eme

Other words from morpheme

  • mor·phe·mic, adjective
  • mor·phe·mi·cal·ly, adverb

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British Dictionary definitions for morpheme

morpheme

/ (ˈmɔːfiːm) /


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

Origin of morpheme

1
C20: from French, from Greek morphē form, coined on the model of phoneme; see -eme

Derived forms of morpheme

  • morphemic, adjective
  • morphemically, adverb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012