Word of the Day

: May 13, 2007

infix

noun IN-fiks

What It Means

: a derivational or inflectional affix appearing in the body of a word

infix in Context

"In addition to suffixes and prefixes, the language [Inuktitut] has infixes, denoting tense or gender. . .." (Stephanie Nolen Iqaluit, The Independent, July 29, 2000)

Did You Know?

Like prefixes and suffixes, infixes are part of the general class of affixes ("sounds or letters attached to or inserted within a word to produce a derivative word or an inflectional form"). Infixes are relatively rare in English, but you can find them in the plural forms of some words. For example, "cupful," "spoonful," and "passerby" can be pluralized as "cupsful," "spoonsful," and "passersby," using "s" as an infix. Another example is the insertion of an (often offensive) intensifier into a word, as in "fan-freakin'-tastic." Such whole-word insertions are sometimes called "infixes," though this phenomenon is more traditionally known as "tmesis."