Affixes: -atic

Affixes: the building blocks of English

Home Introduction About the author Types of affixes Thematic indexes Search the site A B C D E F G H I JK L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Previous entry Next entry Up to index of A

-atic

Forming adjectives, and some nouns.

[French -atique or Latin -aticus, often based on Greek -atikos.]

Some of the many adjectives in this ending are dramatic (via late Latin from Greek dramatikos); rheumatic (Old French reumatique, or via Latin from Greek rheumatikos); pneumatic (French pneumatique or Latin pneumaticus, from Greek pneumatikos, from pneuma, wind). The ending also appears in adjectives formed from English nouns: operatic, acrobatic, lymphatic.

Some adjectives in -atic have become nouns as well, through a shorthand in which—for example—aquatic plant has been abbreviated to an aquatic, or in geology, an erratic boulder became an erratic, one thought to have been brought from a distance by glacial action. A few are as often nouns as they are adjectives: lunatic, fanatic.

For adjectives in -cratic, see -cracy.

Visit Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words site for 2000+ articles on English!