Libfix (original) (raw)
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Type of affix
In linguistics, a libfix is a productive bound morpheme affix created by rebracketing and back-formation, often a generalization of a component of a blended or portmanteau word. For example, walkathon was coined in 1932 as a blend of walk and marathon,[1] and soon thereafter the -athon part was reinterpreted as a libfix meaning "event or activity lasting a long time or involving a great deal of something".[2][3] Words formed with this suffix include talkathon, telethon, hackathon, and so on. Affixes whose morpheme boundaries are etymologically based, and which are used in their original sense, are not libfixes. Libfixes often utilise epenthesis, as in the example of -holism and -holic which are joined with consonant-final segments via the vowel ⟨a⟩, creating work**-a-**holism or sex**-a-**holism.
Splinters were defined by Berman in 1961 as non-morphemic word fragments. This includes not just libfixes, but also word fragments which become words, like burger (< hamburger), flu (< influenza), and net (< network).[4][5][6]
The name libfix was coined by Arnold Zwicky in 2010 as a blend of "liberated" and "affix" specifically for splinters used as productive morphemes.[7]
Some of these formations have been considered barbarisms by prescriptive writers on style,[8] though other writers have praised them. Speaking of the -tron suffix, a philologist commented:
I once heard an unkind critic allude disparagingly to these neologisms as dog-Greek. To a lover of the language of Sophocles and Plato these recent coinages may indeed appear to be Greek debased. More appropriately, perhaps, they might be termed lion-Greek or chameleon-Greek. They are Neo-Hellenic in the genuine Renaissance tradition.[9]
Each example gives the affix, the source word(s) from which it was formed, the meaning, and examples.
This list does not include:
- affixes based on English words like tech or burger used literally, even if they are shortened forms, in this case, for technology and hamburger;
- affixes which are aligned in form and meaning with their etymological source, like -(o)cracy or -orama in cyclorama and diorama from ὅραμα 'spectacle'; motorama is a portmanteau of motor and orama, not a compound of mot- and -orama;
- words which have been separated from phrases, e.g. fu from kung fu.
-(i)ana < Virgiliana (Latin, then French)[10]
related to a given person, place, period
Churchilliana, Americana, Victoriana
an enzyme
-cation < vacation
kinds of vacation
staycation, girlcation
-copter < helicopter
having a spinning rotor allowing for flight
-core < hardcore
aesthetic, hardcore punk derivatives, hardcore techno derivatives
speedcore, grindcore, cottagecore, bardcore
-dar < radar
the skill of detecting qualities or things
gaydar, humordar, Jewdar
-erati < literati
groups of people with common interests
digerati, glitterati
economic inflation in a particular field
tipflation, stagflation, shrinkflation
-gasm < orgasm
an intensely pleasurable experience
foodgasm, cargasm, shoegasm, nerdgasm
-gate < Watergate
a scandal
gamergate, troopergate; see [List of "-gate" scandals](/wiki/List%5Fof%5F%22-gate%22%5Fscandals "List of "-gate" scandals")
-(m)(a)geddon < Armageddon
major disasters (usually facetious)
carmageddon, snowgeddon, Irmageddon
-(a)holic, -(a)holism < Alcoholism
addict(ed)
shopaholic, workaholic, sexaholic; see English terms suffixed with -holic
-kini < bikini
type of bathing suit
burkini, monokini, tankini, mankini
-(i/e/a/∅)licious < delicious
a high degree of some property (usually jocular)[12]
bootylicious, babelicious, yummalicious, sacrilicious, crunchalicious
-(o)nomics < economics
an economic policy or philosophy
used to form commercial products; later, for forms of bribery[13]
Victrola, moviola, shinola; payola, plugola
-oma < carcinoma, sarcoma (-ομα is a suffix for deverbal nouns)
a kind of tumor, swelling, or cancer
-ome, -omics < genome, genomics, trichome
a map of a biological system; and other uses in biology
connectome, proteome; biome, rhizome, vacuome
-on < electron (see also -tron)
an elementary particle or quasiparticle
proton, neutron, meson, phonon, etc.; see List of particles
-preneur < entrepreneur
an entrepreneur in some domain
intrapreneur, ecopreneur, mompreneur
-pocalypse < apocalypse
a catastrophic event
snowpocalypse, robopocalypse, beepocalypse
-tard < retard, a pejorative term for a mentally disabled or stupid person
people who are foolish or stupid; pejorative
fucktard, libtard
-(a)thon, -a-thon < marathon
that last a long time or require remarkable endurance
walkathon, telethon, hackathon
a kind of vacuum tube; a subatomic particle; a device
magnetron; positron; cyclotron
-(n)(i)verse < universe
the collection of all things in a category, or a fictional universe
blogoverse, Twitterverse, Whoniverse
-wich < sandwich
sandwich
fishwich, hamwich, snackwich
monstrous, scary, or large things; can function as an augmentative and pejorative
alt- < alternative (usually written with a hyphen)
outside the mainstream
crypto- < cryptography
related to cryptocurrency
cryptoasset, cryptobro, cryptocoin, cryptojack, cryptoverse
issues or policies related to computers
eco- < ecology
related to the environment, to ecology, or to sustainability
eco-terrorism, eco-nationalism, eco-investing
econo- < economics
related to economics; economical, inexpensive
econometrics (not *economometrics), econophysics; econobox
franken- < Frankenstein
related to “human efforts to interfere with nature”[14][15]
frankenfood, frankenplant, frankenscience
glut- < gluten, glutamic acid
related to glutamic acid, one of the amino acids
heli- < helicopter
types of helicopters; related to helicopters[16]
helibus; helipad, heliport, helidrome, heliborne
hyper- < hypertext
related to hypertext
oxy-, oxi- < oxygen, not sharp, acid
related to oxygen
petro- < petroleum, not rock
related to petroleum
petrodollar, petrochemical, petrocurrency
syn- < synthetic, synthesizer
synthetic; related to (musical) synthesizers
syngas, synfuel, syncrude, Synclavier
-opoli < Tangentopoli 'Bribesville'
a scandal
Portuguese (Brazil)
[edit]
-ão[17] < Mensalão 'Monthly payment-gate'
a scandal
Petrolão, Metrolão [pt], Trensalão [pt]
- Bernard Fradin, "Combining forms, blends, and related phenomena", in Doleschal, Ursula; Thornton, Anna M., eds. (2000). Extragrammatical and marginal morphology. LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics. Muenchen: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-590-9. papers from a workshop in Vienna, 1996, p. 11-59 full text
- Otto Jespersen, "Language: Its Nature Development And Origin, by Otto Jespersen—The Project Gutenberg eBook". www.gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
- Norde, Muriel; Sippach, Sarah (November 2019). "Nerdalicious scientainment: A network analysis of English libfixes". Word Structure. 12 (3): 353–384. doi:10.3366/word.2019.0153. ISSN 1750-1245.
- Yuval Pinter, Cassandra L. Jacobs, Max Bittker. "NYTWIT: A Dataset of Novel Words in the New York Times", Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (Barcelona), p. 6509–6515, December 8–13, 2020. full text
- Whitman, Neal (2013-09-17). "A linguistic tour of the best libfixes, from -ana to -zilla". The Week. Retrieved 2025-11-15.
- Arnold Zwicky, "Language Log: Playing with your morphology". itre.cis.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2009, s.v. walkathon
- ^ "Definition of -ATHON". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1972, s.v. -athon
- ^ Laurie Bauer, "The borderline between derivation and compounding", p. 97-108 in Morphology and its Demarcations, Selected papers from the 11th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2004
- ^ J.M. Berman, "Contribution on Blending", Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 9:278-281 (1961) (not seen)
- ^ Fandrych, Ingrid (2008-11-10). "Submorphemic elements in the formation of acronyms, blends and clippings". Lexis. Journal in English Lexicology (2). doi:10.4000/lexis.713. ISSN 1951-6215.
- ^ "Libfixes". Arnold Zwicky's Blog. 2010-01-23. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
- ^ a b c McArthur, Tom, ed. (1992). "s.v. "Greek"". The Oxford companion to the English language. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 453–454. ISBN 978-0-19-214183-5.
- ^ Simeon Potter, Our Language, 1950, as quoted in [8]
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1884, s.v. ana, suffix
- ^ "-flation". www.affixes.org. Retrieved 2023-05-09.
- ^ Zwicky, 2006
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. -ola suffix 2
- ^ Waldman, Katie (January 6, 2017). "How Franken- Lurched Its Way Into Our Lexicon". Slate.
- ^ "'Frankenstein' and 'Frankenfood': Creator or creation?". Merriam-Webster.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. heli-, combining form
- ^ Melo, Andréia; Gleice, Alcântara. "As Facetas Do Sufixo -ão: Uma História Das Ideias linguísticas Sobre O Processo De formação De Palavras" [The facets of the suffix -ao: a History of languageideas on the words formation process]. Papéis: Revista Do Programa De Pós-Graduação Em Estudos De Linguagens UFMS (in Brazilian Portuguese). 19 (37): 70–86.