As in many other languages,
Irish adds
prefixes to words to create new words.
If you become familiar with the
prefixes below, you may double your
vocabulary!
Note that some
prefixes are separated from the base word by a
hyphen,
and some
prefixes cause
lenition.
- ain- in-, un-, not-, over-
- Examples: ceart (right) becomes aincheart (unjust),
fios (knowledge) becomes ainfhiosracht (over-curious).
- an- very
- Example: maith (good) becomes an-mhaith (very good).
- ath- re-
- Example: déan (do, make) becomes athdéan (redo, remake).
- ceann- chief, main, -headed
- Example: litir (letter) becomes ceannlitir (capital letter).
- comh- mutual, joint
- Example: ceol (music) becomes comh-ceol (harmony).
- dea- good, well
- Example: scéal (news, story) becomes dea-scéal (piece of good news).
- déarg- red-, real, utter
- Example: gráin (hatred) becomes dearg-ghráin (intense hatred).
- dé- bi-, di-, two-
- Example: taobh (side) becomes dethaobhach (bilateral).
- di- de-, dis-, in-, un-
- Example: scéal (news, story) becomes discéil (uninformative).
- do- in-, un-, not-
- Example: déanta (done, complete) becomes dodhéanta (impossible, hard to do),
- il- many, multi-
- Example: eochair (key) becomes ileochair (master key).
- in- capable of
- Example: creidte (believed) becomes inchreidte (believable).
- lán- total
- Example: cead (permission) becomes lánchead (full permission).
- réamh- pre-, preliminary
- Example: feiceáil (seeing) becomes reamhfheiceáil (foresight).
- mion- small, micro-
- Example: insint (telling) becomes mioninsint (detailed report).
- sár- exceeding, ultra-
- Example: riail (rule) becomes sár-riail (golden rule).
- ró- over-
- Example: minic (often) becomes ro-mhinic (too often).
- so- easy
- Example: briste (broken) becomes so-bhriste (fragile, easily broken).