a-

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[edit] English

[edit] Usage notes

Different Germanic senses of a- became confused – vaguely “intensive” – and are no longer productive. The Greek sense of “not” (e.g., amoral) remains productive.

“[I]t naturally happened that all these a- prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic [nice-sounding], or even archaic, and wholly otiose [pointless].” OED.

[edit] Etymology 1

From Old English ā-, originally **ar-, *or-, from Proto-Germanic *uz- (out-), from Proto-Indo-European *uds- (up, out). Cognate with German er-.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. (no longer productive) forming verbs with the sense away, from, out
    arise, await

[edit] Etymology 2

A proclitic form of preposition a

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. (no longer productive) in, on
    apace, afire, aboil

[edit] Etymology 3

From Middle English variant form of y-, from Old English ġe-, from Proto-Germanic *ga-.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. (Appalachian) used in the present participle and sometimes past participle.
    They's asinging a song. He's aheaded to the store.
  2. (no longer productive) representing the Anglo-Saxon intensifying prefix, sometimes with little change in meaning, e.g. aware
[edit] Usage notes

Beyond its use it a few words such as aware (which has replaced the plain ware), common use of this prefix is fossilized in a few songs, as listed above, and its productive use is considered highly archaic or poetic. It remains in use in Appalachian English.

[edit] Etymology 4

From Anglo-Norman a-, from Old French e-, from Latin ex-.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. (no longer productive) forming words with the sense of wholly, out, e.g. abash

[edit] Etymology 5

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel).

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. Forming words denoting absence or lack, e.g. abyss, amoral, usually with stems beginning with consonants.
    • 1948 (revised 1952), Robert Graves, The White Goddess, Faber & Faber 1999, p. 7:
      When invited to believe in the Chimaera, the horse-centaurs, or the winged horse Pegasus, all of them straightforward Pelasgian cult-symbols, a philosopher felt bound to reject them as a-zoölogical improbabilities [...].
[edit] Related terms

[edit] References

  • a-” in the Online Etymology Dictionary, Douglas Harper, 2001

[edit] French

[edit] Etymology 1

From Old French, from Latin ad-.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. A prefix forming words, especially verbs, that denote entering a state, making progress toward a goal, or the like.

[edit] Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel; generalized from the many Latin borrowings using this prefix.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. a-, non-, -less.

[edit] References


[edit] Italian

Italian Wikipedia has an article on:

Wikipedia it

[edit] Etymology 1

From Latin ad-.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. ad- (indication direction)

[edit] Usage notes

The Italian prefix a- often reduplicates the following consonant (syntactic gemination, raddoppiamento fonosintattico). The actual forms usually will be ab- (in abbracciare), ad- (in addestrare), al- (in allargare) etc.

[edit] Etymology 2

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-).

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. a- (indicating lack or loss)
[edit] Synonyms

[edit] Latin

[edit] Alternative forms

[edit] Etymology

From ab (away from)

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. from, away, away from
  2. off
  3. at a distance
  4. completely, thoroughly
  5. absence of
  6. more remote

[edit] Usage notes

  • used before consonants, but not usually 'c' or 't'.
  • before a word beginning with "f," becomes "au-" as in auferre
  • before a word beginning with "p," becomes "as-" as in asportare

[edit] Navajo

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. someone's, people's

[edit] Usage notes

This prefix is often used as a neutral possessive pronoun to make the citation forms of inalienable nouns: amá (someone's mother), akʼos (someone's neck), ajáád (someone's leg), ajááʼ (someone's ear), akʼéí (someone's kin). The alternative is to use the prefix bi- (his/her/its/their) to make these dictionary forms.

[edit] See also


[edit] Old English

[edit] Etymology

From an earlier form ar-, from Germanic. Cognate with Old High German ar-, ir- (German er-).

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

ā-

  1. forming words with the sense from, away, off, out, e.g. āniman

[edit] Derived terms


[edit] Old French

[edit] Etymology

Latin ad, which was often reduced to a- in compounds.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. indicating movement towards something
  2. (by extension) indicating a change of state

[edit] Polish

[edit] Etymology

From an indoslavic form अ-.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. forming words with the sense of negation, eg. aspołeczny (a- + społeczny)

[edit] Serbo-Croatian

[edit] Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel).

[edit] Prefix

a- (Cyrillic spelling а-)

  1. Prefix prepended to words to denote a negation, deprivation or absence of a property denoted by base word.

[edit] Spanish

[edit] Etymology 1

From Latin ad-.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. A prefix forming words, especially verbs, that denote entering a state, making progress toward a goal, or the like.

[edit] See also

[edit] Etymology 2

From Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (ἀν- (an-) immediately preceding a vowel; generalized from the many Latin borrowings using this prefix.

[edit] Prefix

a-

  1. a-, non-, -less.
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