[ad. mod.L. suffixum, subst. use of neut. of suffixus, pa. pple. of suffígĕre, f. suf- = SUB- 2 + figĕre to FIX. Cf. F. suffixe.]
1. Gram. A verbal element attached to the end of a word to form an entirely new word (e.g., short, short-age, short-en, short-er, short-est, short-ish, short-ly, short-ness) or as an inflexional formative (e.g., ox, ox-en).
1778. Bp. Lowth, Transl. Isaiah, Notes 243. These being all the places, where this word occurs without a suffix.
1864. I. Taylor, Wds. & Places, 124. The suffixes which occur most frequently in Anglo-Saxon names denote an enclosure of some kind.
1900. Sweet, New Engl. Gram., 459. This suffix is frequent in names of animals, generally expressing youth or smallness, as in youngling ‘young animal.’
1904. H. Bradley, Making of English, 133. The freedom with which we can still form new derivatives by means of suffixes inherited from Old English.
2. Math. An inferior index written to the right of a symbol.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIII. 211/1. Suffix, a term lately employed in mathematical language to denote the indices which are written under letters, as in a0, a1, a2, a3.
1882. Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 14. The suffixes signifying that n is to receive all integer values from 1 to ∞.
3. attrib.: suffix-language, a language inflected by means of suffixes; suffix-pronominal a., having suffixal pronouns.
1869. Bleek, Comp. Gram. S. Afr. Lang., II. 136. One of these families of languages (either the Prefix-Pronominal or the Suffix-Pronominal) has inverted the original position of the derivative particles.
1879. A. R. Wallace, Australasia, i. 7. The Australian idioms are characterised exclusively by suffix formations, whereas the Papuan tongues show a preference rather for prefixes.
1881. Whitney, Mixt. in Lang., 21. A prefix-language, for example, might live in contact with a suffix-language forever without finding out the latter’s character, and without adopting a single item of its methods—until, perchance, it should have borrowed suffix-words enough to create in its own usage an analogy which it might proceed in entire unconsciousness to follow.
Hence Suffixal a., of the form or nature of a suffix; Suffixation, formation by means of a suffix; Suffixion [after PREFIXION], the act of suffixing or state of being suffixed; Suffixment, use as a suffix.
1874. A. B. Davidson, Introd. Hebr. Gram., 101. The cons. and *suffixal forms of sing. and plur. noun coincide in spelling.
1899. E. W. Fay, in Amer. Jrnl. Philol., XX. 449. Persisted after composition had sunk to *suffixation.
a. 1860. Worcester (citing N. Brit. Rev.), *Suffixion.
1879. Earle, Philol. Engl. Tongue (ed. 3), § 356. 331. An old French form -ie, now become y, of whose various *suffixment mention has been made above.
