back-formation

English

Examples (back-formation)
babysitter → babysit ecolinguistics → ecolinguist

Alternative forms

• backformation, back formation

Etymology

Coined by Scottish lexicographer and philologist James Murray in 1889; from back- +‎ formation.

Noun

back-formation (countable and uncountable, plural back-formations)

1. (uncountable, linguistics) The process by which a new word is formed from an older word by interpreting the former as a derivative of the latter, often by removing a morpheme (real or perceived) from the older word, such as the verb burgle, formed by removing -ar (perceived as an agent-noun suffix) from burglar.
2. (countable) A word created in this way.

   Back-formations, such as "tambour" (for "play the tambourine"), are a staple of comedic wordplay.

   Synonym: back-form

Derived terms

• back-form

Translations

linguistic process

• Arabic: اشْتِقَاق عَكْسِيّ‎ (ar) m (ištiqāq ʕaksiyy)
• Danish: subtraktionsdannelse c
• Dutch: terugvorming (nl)
• Esperanto: retrodeveno (eo)
• Finnish: takaperoisjohto (fi)
• French: dérivation régressive (fr) f, dérivation inverse (fr) f, rétroformation (fr) f
• German: Rückbildung (de) f
• Greek: αναδρομικός σχηματισμός (el) m (anadromikós schimatismós)
• Hebrew: גזירה לאחור‎ (he)
• Hungarian: elvonás (hu), szóelvonás (hu)
• Italian: retroformazione (it)
• Japanese: 逆成 (ぎゃくせい, gyakusei)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tilbakedannelse m, tilbakedanning c

• Polish: derywacja wsteczna f
• Portuguese: derivação regressiva (pt) f
• Romanian: derivare regresivă (ro) f
• Russian: обра́тное словообразова́ние n (obrátnoje slovoobrazovánije)
• Spanish: derivación regresiva f
• Swedish: omvänd ordbildning
• Welsh: ôl-ffurfiad m

word formed by this linguistic process

• Arabic: مُشْتَقَّة عَكْسِيًّا‎ f (muštaqqa(t) ʕaksiyyan)
• Danish: subtraktionsdannelse c
• Finnish: takaperoisjohdos (fi)
• Hungarian: elvonás (hu)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tilbakedannelse m, tilbakedanning c

• Spanish: derivado regresivo m
• Welsh: ôl-ffurf f

See also

• disfixation
• Category:Back-formations by language
• Category:English back-formations