The building blocks of English

Affixes

-ina

Forming nouns.

Italian, Spanish, or Latin feminine suffixes.

Some examples are feminine terms and titles (ballerina, Latina, signorina, tsarina), female personal names (Christina, Georgina, Wilhelmina), or occasionally placenames derived from such personal names (Carolina). Others are musical instruments (concertina, ocarina), or compositions (sonatina).

The ending also appears in the taxonomic names of some plant and animal groups; here it derives from the neuter plural of Latin adjectives ending in ‑inus (with animalia, animals, understood). Examples are Casuarina, a genus of trees native to Australia and SE Asia; Globigerina, a genus of planktonic marine protozoans with calcareous shells; Spirulina, a genus of filamentous cyanobacteria.

Others come from a variety of unconnected sources: for example, pashmina, a fine-quality material made from goat's wool, is from Persian pas̆m, wool.

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