WORD FORMATION

PROCESSES
 Did you know how the
words we use today were
formed or came about?
Following are some of the
basic processes by which
the words we use today
were formed.
Coinage
It is the invention of new terms. New words are
coined from trade names or product brands that
have generally acceptable terms for the
products they represent. These words become
household names and eventually become part of
the language.

Examples: xerox, nylon, aspirin and zipper

Eponyms
These are words coined from the names
of persons or places.

Examples: sandwich – from Earl Sandwich

volt – from Alessandro Volta
Borrowing
It is a taking or adopting of wordsfrom other
languages.

Examples: piano (Italian)

athlete (Greek)
tycoon (Japanese)
paper (Egypt)
Compounding
It is the joining of two independent words to form
a new word.

Examples: text + book = textbook

finger + print = fingerprint
rail + road = railroad
sun+ flower = sunflower
Blending
It is the fusion of parts of two separate words to
form a new word.

Examples: smoke + fog = smog

motor + hotel = motel
gasoline + alcohol = gasohol
television + broadcast = telecast
Clipping
It is the reduction of words to their shorter form.

Examples: advertisement – ad
doctor – doc
examination – exam
Mathematics – Math
Acronyms
These are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of
words.The words may be pronounced as letters,capitalized single
word

Examples: UN = United Nations

NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
laser = light amplification by stimulated emission or
radiation
Affixation
It is the addition of a prefix or suffix to a word to form a new word.

Examples: misspelled
unhappy
outperform
teacher
friendship
manageable
Back-formation
It is the reduction of a word of one type to another type. It usually
involves changing the noun form of a word to a verb by removing
the affixes.

Examples:
Noun Verb
editor edit
aviation aviate
Conversion
It is the changing of the function of a word to form a
new word.

Examples:
I have green eyes. The principal eyes the
program
I hope to see him now. Hope keeps us alive.
Literature is fun. She is a literature teacher
Reduplication
It is the repetition of the entire word or part of it.
Reduplication can be categorized as rhyming, exact
and ablaut.

Examples: Rhyming: boogie-woogie, hocus – pocus

Exact: bye-bye bye, so-so
Ablaut: singsong, ticktock