Lesson · E.3.2
Working out meaning from word parts
How to break an unfamiliar word into prefix, root, and suffix to work out its meaning, with medical-term examples the TEAS favours.
ObjectiveE.3.2Read2 minExam weightVocabulary ≈ 31% of English and Language Usage
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- Break an unfamiliar word into prefix, root, and suffix.
- Identify common medical roots, prefixes, and suffixes and their meanings.
- Decode an unfamiliar term's meaning from its word parts.
What the lesson concludes
- Break an unfamiliar word into prefix, root, and suffix before trying to guess its meaning as a whole.
- The root carries the core topic, such as cardi for heart or gastr for stomach.
- The prefix narrows or reverses that meaning, as hyper and hypo do with the same root.
- The suffix often names the type of word, such as -itis for inflammation or -ectomy for removal.
- Learning a small set of common word parts lets you decode many unfamiliar terms on sight.