Suffixes are word endings that you add to base words or roots. They can change the word’s meaning, its part of speech, or its grammatical role. French suffixes help you create new words, form adjectives and nouns, and indicate things like gender and number.
Types of Suffixes
French suffixes fall into three main categories: derivational, inflectional, and infix.
Derivational Suffixes
Derivational suffixes create new words by changing the meaning or part of speech of the base word.
- -ment: Turns verbs into nouns indicating an action or result (e.g., mouvement, changement).
- -eur / -euse: Forms nouns denoting people who perform an action (e.g., chanteur, danseuse).
- -able: Forms adjectives meaning “capable of” or “worthy of” (e.g., mangeable).
Complete the French sentence with the correct derivational suffix: "Le __ de ce peintre est célèbre." (The action of this painter is famous.)
mouvement
The suffix '-ment' turns the verb 'mouvoir' into the noun 'mouvement,' indicating an action.
Inflectional Suffixes
Inflectional suffixes modify a word’s form to express grammatical features like number, gender, or tense.
- -s / -x: Indicates plural nouns or adjectives (e.g., chats, chevaux).
- -e: Marks feminine gender in adjectives and some nouns (e.g., petit → petite).
- -é / -ée: Past participle endings for verbs in -er (e.g., mangé, mangée).
Infixes
Infixes are less common but appear inside words, usually for verb conjugation.
- Examples: -iss- in finir → finissais, finissons.
French suffixes are powerful tools for building vocabulary and expressing meaning. By learning common suffixes, you can often guess the meaning or category of a word and use them to create your own.
Last updated: Wed Jun 18, 2025
