The building blocks of English
Affixes
-ise2
Forming nouns.
Old French ‑ise, from Latin ‑itia, ‑itius, ‑itium.
Most words from these Latin endings were spelled with ‑ice in French and this spelling became the usual one in English (see ‑ice). However, a small number of words adopted ‑ise instead: exercise, expertise, franchise, merchandise.
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