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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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spher(o)- Also sphaero-.

A sphere; spherical.

[Greek sphaira, ball.]

A spherometer is an instrument for measuring the curvature of spheres and curved surfaces; something spheroid is a sphere-like but not perfectly spherical body; a spheroplast is a bacterium or plant cell bound by its plasma membrane. A related term is spherule, a small sphere (Latin sphaerula, a diminutive of Latin sphaera, sphere), from which comes spherulite, a small spheroidal mass of crystals, grouped radially around a point, found in obsidian and other glassy rocks. The spelling sphaero- is the older one, now almost entirely replaced by sphero-.

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