1. Root words

You will notice that the words in the chart all have the same root word. Attraction, attract, attractive and attractively have attract in common. "The root" can also refer to the Greek or Latin root that is used. A few examples of these include:

1. vita: vitality, vitalize, vitamin life
2. demos: demographics people
3. phobos: photophobia fear
4. therapy: therapeutics, chemotherapy to cure

2. Prefixes

Prefixes are placed in front of a word. While they can add something to the meaning of a word, they do not usually change the type of word it is.

1. anti- antisocial "against"
2. bi- bicycle, biplane "two"
3. co- cooperate, copilot "with"
4. de- decrease, descend "down" or "negative"
5. dis- disconnect, disown "do the opposite of"

3. Suffixes

Suffixes are the grammatical endings of words. Some suffixes will tell you what kind of word you are using.

Nouns

-er, -or, -ee, -ess will often turn verbs into nouns Examples: writer, driver, actor, employee, trainee, actress, waitress, princess

Adjectives

-al, -ous, -ic, -ful, -less will usually make words adjectives
Examples: personal, natural, postal, humorous, famous, generous, Historic, poetic, electric, beautiful, helpful, useful, childless, helpless, useless