morpheme

See also: Morpheme and morphème

English

WOTD – 17 May 2012

Etymology

From French morphème. Ultimately from Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “shape, form”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɔː(ɹ)fiːm/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Noun

morpheme (plural morphemes)

1. (linguistic morphology) The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as "un-", "break", and "-able" in the word "unbreakable".

   The word pigs consists of two morphemes: pig (a particular animal) and s (indication of the plural).

   The word werewolves consists of three morphemes: were (~ man), wolf (a particular animal), es (plural)

   The word feet consists of two morphemes: foot (a body part) and i-mutation (plural)

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:morpheme

Hyponyms

• prefix
• suffix
• affix

Holonyms

• word

Derived terms

• morphemic

Related terms

→

• allomorph
• bound morpheme
• free morpheme
• lemma

• lexeme
• sememe
• word form

Translations

smallest linguistic unit

• Arabic: مُرْفِيم‎ m (murfīm), مُرْفِيم‎ m (morfēm)
• Armenian: ձեւույթ (jewuytʿ)
• Asturian: morfema m
• Balinese: ᬭᬸᬧᬩᬕ (rupabaga)
• Belarusian: марфе́ма f (marfjéma)
• Bulgarian: морфе́ма (bg) f (morféma)
• Catalan: morfema (ca) m
• Cebuano: morpheme
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 詞素 (zh), 词素 (zh) (císù)

• Czech: morfém (cs) m
• Danish: morfem (da) n
• Dutch: morfeem (nl) n, woorddeel (nl) n
• Esperanto: morfemo
• Estonian: morfeem
• Faroese: morfem n
• Finnish: morfeemi (fi)
• French: morphème (fr) m
• Galician: morfema m
• Georgian: მორფემი (morpemi)
• German: Morphem (de) n
• Greek: μόρφημα (el) (mórfima)
• Hungarian: morféma (hu)
• Icelandic: myndan f, morfem f, minnsta merkingarbær eining mál (is) f
• Ido: morfemo (io)
• Indonesian: morfem (id)

• Italian: morfema (it) m
• Japanese: 形態素 (ja) (けいたいそ, keitaiso)
• Khmer: រូបសព្វតា (ruup sɑp taa)
• Korean: 형태소 (ko) (hyeongtaeso)
• Latin: morphema
• Macedonian: морфе́ма f (morféma)
• Malay: morfem
• Mongolian: бүтээвэр (mn) (büteever)
• Persian: تکواژ‎ (fa) (takvâž)
• Polish: morfem (pl) m inan
• Portuguese: morfema (pt) m
• Romanian: morfem (ro) n
• Russian: морфе́ма (ru) f (morféma)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: морфе́ма f, мо̀рфе̄м f

  Roman: morféma f, mòrfēm (sh) f

• Slovak: morféma f
• Spanish: morfema (es) m
• Swedish: morfem (sv)
• Tagalog: multuran
• Thai: หน่วยคำ (nùai-kam)
• Tibetan: སྒྲ་དོམ་ཕྲ་མོ (sgra dom phra mo)
• Turkish: biçimbirim (tr)
• Ukrainian: морфе́ма f (morféma)
• Vietnamese: hình vị
• Welsh: morffem, morffemau f pl

See also

• chereme
• chroneme
• grapheme
• lexeme
• listeme
• phoneme
• toneme