a-

See also Appendix:Variations of "a"

English

Usage notes

Different Germanic senses of a- became confused – vaguely “intensive” – and are no longer productive. The Greek sense of “not” (e.g., amoral) remains productive.

“[I]t naturally happened that all these a- prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic [nice-sounding], or even archaic, and wholly otiose [pointless].” OED.

Etymology 1

From Middle English a- (“up, out, away”), from Old English ā-, originally *ar-, *or-, from Proto-Germanic *uz- (“out-”), from Proto-Indo-European *uds- (“up, out”). Cognate with Old Saxon ā-, German er-.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ə/, X-SAMPA: /@/

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) forming verbs with the sense away, up, on, out

   arise, await

2. (no longer productive) forming verbs with the sense of intensified action.

   abide, amaze

Etymology 2

• A proclitic form of preposition a; from Old English an (“on”)
• See a (preposition, on, to, in, etc.)

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ə/, X-SAMPA: /@/

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) in, on, at; used to show a state, condition, or manner. [First attested prior to 1150]

   apace, afire, aboil

2. (no longer productive) In, into. [First attested prior to 1150]

   asunder

3. In the direction of, or toward. [First attested prior to 1150]

   astern, abeam

4. (archaic, dialectal) At such a time. [First attested prior to 1150]

   Come a-morning we are going hunting.

5. (archaic, dialectal) In the act or process of. [First attested prior to 1150]

   Come morning, we are going a-hunting.

   They's asinging a song. He's aheaded to the store.

   • 1777, Thomas Arne, A-Hunting We Will Go
   • 1780, The Twelve Days of Christmas:

     The twelfth day of Christmas,

     My true love sent to me

     Twelve lords a-leaping,

     …

     Eight maids a-milking,

     Seven swans a-swimming,

     Six geese a-laying,

   • c. 1850, Here We Come A-wassailing/Here We Come A-caroling

     Here we come a-wassailing

     Among the leaves so green;

     Here we come a-wand’ring

     So fair to be seen.

   • 1939, Alfred Edward Housman, Additional Poems, XIII, lines 6-7:

     Oh waste no words a-wooing

     The soft sleep to your bed;

Etymology 3

From Middle English variant form of y-, from Old English ġe-, from Proto-Germanic *ga-.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ə/, X-SAMPA: /@/

Alternative forms

• i-

Prefix

a-

1. (obsolete, archaic) Alternative form of y-.[First attested around 1150 to 1350.]

Etymology 4

From Anglo-Norman a-, from Old French e-, from Latin ex-.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ə/, X-SAMPA: /@/

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) forming words with the sense of wholly, or utterly out[First attested from around 1150 to 1350.]

   abash

Etymology 5

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA: /ə/, /eɪ/, X-SAMPA: /@/, /eI/

Prefix

a-

1. Not, without, opposite of.
   • 1948 (revised 1952), Robert Graves, The White Goddess, Faber & Faber 1999, p. 7:

     When invited to believe in the Chimaera, the horse-centaurs, or the winged horse Pegasus, all of them straightforward Pelasgian cult-symbols, a philosopher felt bound to reject them as a-zoölogical improbabilities [...].

   • 2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin 2013, p. 191:

     If aroused outside the proper outlet of marriage, [female lust] could range out of control, turning its possessor into an a-feminine monster: that is what happened to fallen women.

Usage notes

• Used with stems that begin with consonants except sometimes h. an- is synonymous and is used in front of words that start with vowels and sometimes h.

Etymology 6

From Middle English, from Middle French a-, from Latin ad (“at”).

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) Towards; Used to indicate direction, reduction to, increase to, change into, or motion. [First attested from around 1150 to 1350.]

   ascend, aspire, amass, abandon, avenue

Usage notes

• Used on stems that started with sc, sp, or st, and also used on stems with a French origin.
• Used in place of ad-.

Etymology 7

From Latin ab (“of, off, from, away”)

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) Away from. [First attested from around 1150 to 1350.]

   avert, aperient, abridge, assoil

Usage notes

• Variation of the prefix ab-, only used when the stem starts with the letter p or v.

Etymology 8

• From Middle English a-, o- (“of”)
• See a (preposition, of)

Prefix

a-

1. (no longer productive) Of, from. [First attested prior to 1150.]

   anew, afresh

Derived terms

[+] English words prefixed with a-

References

• 2003 [1933], Brown, Lesley editor, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, edition 5th, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-860575-7, page 1:

• 2007 [2002], Lindberg, Christine A. editor, The Oxford College Dictionary, edition 2nd, New York, NY: Spark Publishing., ISBN 978-1-4114-0500-4, page 1:

• 1984 [1975], Urdang, Laurence editor, The Random House College Dictionary, New York, NY: Random House, Inc., ISBN 0-394-43600-8, page 1:
• “a-” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary (2001).

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Danish

Prefix

a-

1. A-; (atomic, nuclear)

Derived terms

[+] Danish words prefixed with a-

Synonyms

• atom-

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French

Etymology 1

From Old French, from Latin ad-.

Prefix

a-

1. A prefix forming words, especially verbs, that denote entering a state, making progress toward a goal, or the like.

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel; generalized from the many Latin borrowings using this prefix.

Prefix

a-

1. a-, non-, -less.

Derived terms

[+] French words prefixed with a-

References

• "a-" in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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Italian

Wikipedia ^it

Etymology 1

From Latin ad-.

Prefix

a-

1. ad- (indication direction)

Usage notes

The Italian prefix a- often reduplicates the following consonant (syntactic gemination, raddoppiamento fonosintattico). The actual forms usually will be ab- (in abbracciare), ad- (in addestrare), al- (in allargare) etc.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-).

Prefix

a-

1. a- (indicating lack or loss)

Synonyms

• an-

Derived terms

[+] Italian words prefixed with a-

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Latin

Alternative forms

• ab-, abs-

Etymology

From ab (“away from”)

Prefix

a-

1. from, away, away from
2. off
3. at a distance
4. completely, thoroughly
5. absence of
6. more remote

Usage notes

• used before consonants, but not usually 'c' or 't'.
• before a word beginning with "f," becomes "au-" as in auferre
• before a word beginning with "p," becomes "as-" as in asportare

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Navajo

Prefix

a-

1. someone's, people's

Usage notes

This prefix is often used as a neutral possessive pronoun to make the citation forms of inalienable nouns: amá (“someone's mother”), akʼos (“someone's neck”), ajáád (“someone's leg”), ajááʼ (“someone's ear”), akʼéí (“someone's kin”). The alternative is to use the prefix bi- (“his/her/its/their”) to make these dictionary forms.

See also

Navajo possessive pronouns

			singular	dual	plural
1st person			shi-	nihi-	danihi-
2nd person			ni-	nihi-	danihi-
3rd person			bi-
4th person (3o)			yi-
4th person (3a)			ha-, hw-
Indefinite person (3i)			a-

• á-
• ał-
• ahił-

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Old English

Etymology

From an earlier form ar-, from Proto-Germanic *uz-. Cognate with Old High German ar-, ir- (German er-).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɑː/

Prefix

ā-

1. forming words with the sense from, away, off, out, e.g. āniman

Derived terms

[+] Old English words prefixed with a-

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Old French

Etymology

Latin ad, which was often reduced to a- in compounds.

Prefix

a-

1. indicating movement towards something
2. (by extension) indicating a change of state

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Old Irish

Prefix

a- (class A infixed pronoun)

1. him (triggers eclipsis)
2. it (triggers lenition)

Usage notes

This form merges with the prefixes ro-, no-, di-, to-, fo-, ar-, and imm- to form ra-, na-, da-, da-, fa-, ara-, imma- respectively. It disappears after the particle ní (“not”), its only trace being the mutation it causes (eclipsis in the case of the masculine, lenition in the case of the neuter), thus ní cara (does not love) vs. ní chara (does not love it), ní ben (does not strike) vs. ní mben (does not strike him).

Related terms

• d- (class B & C infixed pronoun)
• id-, did- (class C infixed pronouns)
• -i (suffixed pronoun)

Derived terms

[+] Old Irish words prefixed with a-

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Old Saxon

Etymology

From an earlier form ar-, from Proto-Germanic *uz-. Cognate with Old English a-, Old High German ar-, ir- (German er-).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɑː/

Prefix

ā-

1. forming words with the sense from, away, out, off, e.g. āniman

Derived terms

[+] Old Saxon words prefixed with a-

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Polish

Etymology

From an Indoslavic form अ-.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɑː/

Prefix

a-

1. forming words with the sense of negation, eg. aspołeczny (a- + społeczny)

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Portuguese

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌa/

Etymology 1

From Old Portuguese a-.

Prefix

a-

1. added to adjective X, forms verbs meaning to make/turn X

   a- + vermelho (“red”) + -ar → avermelhar (“to redden”)

   a- + baixo (“low”) + -ar → abaixar (“to lower”)

2. added to noun X, forms verbs meaning to cause or make X or to cause something to have X

   a- + pavor (“dread”) + -ar → apavorar (“to frighten”)

   a- + fama (“fame”) + -ar → afamar (“to make famous”)

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), from Proto-Indo-European *n̥-.

Prefix

a-

1. a- (not; without)

Synonyms

• in-

Derived terms

[+] Portuguese words prefixed with a-

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Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel).

Prefix

a- (Cyrillic spelling а-)

1. Prefix prepended to words to denote a negation, deprivation or absence of a property denoted by base word.

   • a- + socijalan → asocijalan
   • a- + simetrija → asimetrija
   • a- + brahija → abrahija

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Spanish

Etymology 1

From Latin ad-.

Prefix

a-

1. A prefix forming words, especially verbs, that denote entering a state, making progress toward a goal, or the like.

See also

• en-

Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel; generalized from the many Latin borrowings using this prefix.

Prefix

a-

1. a-, non-, -less

Derived terms

[+] Spanish words prefixed with a-

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Zulu

Prefix

a- (subject concord, medial form -wa-)

1. they (class 6)

Prefix

a- (possessive concord)

1. of (class 6)

Prefix

a- (relative concord)

1. Class 6 relative concord.

See also

Class 6 concords^[edit]

Full noun prefix:	ama-
Basic noun prefix:	ma-
Subject concord:	a-, -wa-
Object concord:	-wa-
Possessive concord:	a-
Adjective concord:	ama-
Relative concord:	a-
Pronoun:	wona, -wo
See Appendix:Zulu concords for a full table.