suffix, forming adjs., is ad. OF. -eis (mod.F. -ois, -ais):—Com. Romanic -ese (It. -ese, Pr., Sp. -es, Pg. -ez):—L. ēnsem. The L. suffix had the sense ‘belonging to, originating in (a place),’ as in hortēnsis, prātēnsis, f. hortus garden, prātum meadow, and in many adjs. f. local names, as Carthāginiēnsis Carthaginian, Athēniēnsis Athenian. Its representatives in the Romanic langs. are still the ordinary means of forming adjs. upon names of countries or places. In Eng. -ese forms derivatives from names of countries (chiefly after Romanic prototypes), as Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and from some names of foreign (never English) towns, as Milanese, Viennese, Pekinese, Cantonese. These adjs. may usually be employed as sbs., either as names of languages, or as designations of persons; in the latter use they formerly had plurals in -s, but the pl. has now the same form as the sing., the words being taken rather as adjs. used absol. than as proper sbs. (From words in -ese used as pl. have arisen in illiterate speech such sing. forms as Chinee, Maltee, Portugee.) A frequent mod. application of the suffix is to form words designating the diction of certain authors who are accused of writing in a dialect of their own invention: e.g., Johnsonese, Carlylese.
