If you want to improve your English vocabulary, one of the best things you can do is to study the most common prefixes and suffixes for English words. Knowing what they mean and how they are used will not only help you to remember more words, but it will also give you the ability to guess the meanings of words that you have not seen before.
Today I am going to talk about one prefix, “be-” and one suffix, “-en.” Both of them are used to make verbs, and both have a Germanic origin. The prefix “be-” has very limited productivity, while “-en” is no longer productive. When we say “productive” about a prefix or suffix, we are talking about whether you can make new words with it now. It is still possible to make new words with the prefix “be-,” but no one is making new words with the suffix “-en” anymore.
The usage of “be-”
The prefix “be-” was present in Old English. The period of Old English was 450 A.D. to 1150 A.D., so this prefix dates from the beginning of the English language. It has had several different meanings since its birth. Only one of them is still productive in modern times. All of the others are relics from earlier stages of the English language. I will talk about three meanings that I think are the most interesting for anyone who wants to improve their vocabulary.
- English has several examples where the prefix “be-” changes an intransitive verb to a transitive one. Remember that a transitive verb has a direct object, while an intransitive one does not. An example is “wail.” If I say, “John wailed,” I mean that John either made a loud cry expressing pain, or that he complained loudly. There is no direct object. To “bewail” is to wail about something. For example, “Many people bewailed the changes to the historic building.” In other words, many people complained loudly about the changes. This sense of “be-” is not productive in Modern English.
- Another sense of “be-” is “to remove” or “to deprive of.” The example you are most likely to see is “behead.” “To behead” someone is to cut off his head. In other words, you remove his head. Like the first example, this sense of “be-” is not productive in Modern English. People are not making new words with this sense of “be-.”
- The only productive sense of the prefix “be-” is “to cover with” or “adorn with.” If we cover something with jewels, it is “bejeweled.” For example, “More than 2000 diamonds bejewel the Imperial State Crown.” You will often see the past participle form of “be-” verbs used as adjectives. For example, a person with many facial piercings has “a bestudded face.”
The usage of “-en”
The suffix “-en” originally comes from the Old English suffixes “-an,” “-ian,” and “-nian.” These were used to change adjectives into verbs. In Late Middle English, the Old English suffixes merged and became the “-en” we see now. Verbs ending in “-en” can be either intransitive or transitive. If they are intransitive, they mean “to become something.” For example, “The water deepens toward the center of the river.” If they are transitive, they have a causative meaning. For example, “Engineers deepened the river by dredging it.” Engineers made the river deeper.
The suffix “-en” is nearly always attached to one-syllable adjectives of Germanic origin. “Moisten” and “quieten” are two of the few exceptions where “-en” is attached to a non-Germanic word. Here are some examples:
- The adjective “worse” becomes the verb “worsen,” which means “to make something worse.”
- The adjective “short” becomes the verb “shorten,” which means “to make something shorter.”
- The color adjective “white” becomes the verb “whiten,” which means “to make something whiter.”
The suffix “-en” is not productive in Modern English.
Conclusion
To recap, the prefix “be-” and the suffix “-en” are both used to make verbs, and both have a Germanic origin. The prefix “be-” has very limited productivity, while “-en” is no longer productive. Of the three senses of “be-” that I covered, only one sense is productive in Modern English. When “be-” means “to cover with” or “adorn with,” it can be used to create new words. The suffix “-en” is not productive in Modern English. It was once used to turn adjectives into verbs. In an intransitive verb, it means “to become something.” In a transitive verb, it is causative. It means “to make something have a characteristic.”
References
Dixon, R. M. W. (2014). Making New Words: Morphological Derivation in English, Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, pp. 183-188.
“Bewail.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bewail. Accessed 29 Apr. 2025.
“Deepen.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deepen. Accessed 29 Apr. 2025.
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