Header image of wall of bricks Open menu Close menu

-ion

Also ‑cion, ‑sion, ‑tion, and ‑xion.

Forming nouns denoting verbal action.

Via French from Latin ‑ion‑ or words in ‑io.

Examples have been formed from Latin verbs, adjectives or past participles. The main sense is that of an action related to a verb, as communion is the action of communing; rebellion is similarly related to the verb to rebel, fusion to fuse, and infliction to inflict. Nouns can often refer as much to a condition resulting from an action as to the action itself, as pollution can be the action of polluting, or the presence of some harmful substance as a result of the action. In some cases, the noun refers more particularly to the result rather than the action, as in explosion.

Many examples are preceded by a letter derived from the stem of the Latin participle: mainly s (immersion, persuasion) or t (evolution, solution), less often by c (suspicion) or x (fluxion).

A small group derived from Latin nouns have variously been spelled either ‑xion or ‑ction. With a few, the first spelling is standard (complexion, transfixion). With others both forms exist (connection/connexion; inflection/inflexion); in these cases the spelling in ‑ction predominates, partly because of the way the associated verb is spelled (connect, inflect) but also because there are so many nouns in ‑tion that this spelling has influenced them.

None of these endings are active in the language; new examples are formed using ‑ation or ‑ition. See also ‑ize (for ‑isation and ‑ization). Compare ‑ment and ‑ness.

Copyright © Michael Quinion 2008–. All rights reserved. Your comments are very welcome.