Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A new word created by removing an affix from an already existing word, as vacuum clean from vacuum cleaner, or by removing what is mistakenly thought to be an affix, as pea from the earlier English plural pease.
- noun The process of forming words in this way.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Linguistics) a word invented (usually unwittingly by subtracting an affix) on the assumption that a familiar word derives from it, such as emote from emotion.
- noun the process of inventing a back-formation{1}.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable, linguistics The process by which a new word is formed by removing a
morpheme (real or perceived) of an older word, such as the verbburgle , formed by removing -ar (perceived as asuffix forming anagent noun ) fromburglar . - noun countable A word created in this way.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a word invented (usually unwittingly by subtracting an affix) on the assumption that a familiar word derives from it
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word back-formation.
Examples
-
This process is also called back-formation, and almost any word can be broken down for parts, wherever there's a natural syllable break, whether it's etymologically justified or not.
2011 in Words 2011
-
You might think it derives from donate, but the noun is several centuries older; donate is the back-formation.
-
You might think it derives from donate, but the noun is several centuries older; donate is the back-formation.
-
Strictly speaking [* momentarily dons strict hat*], appoint would not be a back-formation, because it is the established root from which disappoint derived.
-
If affixation means forming a word by adding an affix (e.g. frosty from frost, refusal from refuse, instrumentation from instrument), then back-formation is essentially this process in reverse: it adapts an existing word by removing its affix, usually a suffix (e.g. sulk from sulky, proliferate from proliferation, back-form from back-formation).
-
Sometimes a back-formation arises through the assumption that it must already exist, and that its source word is the derivative term.
-
The suffix -nomics is a back-formation from "economics," from a Greek word meaning "household management."
Week in Words Erin McKean 2011
-
English may be partly a result of its lowly origins as a back-formation, as well as its funny phonetic blend of burble and gurgle.
-
That has to be a back-formation from “disbarred,” no?
-
English may be partly a result of its lowly origins as a back-formation, as well as its funny phonetic blend of burble and gurgle.
dimã©lion commented on the word back-formation
love this word!
November 22, 2008
gulyasrobi commented on the word back-formation
List of English back-formations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_back-formations
August 13, 2012