Morpheme Analyzer

Break a word into its morphemes — prefixes, roots, and suffixes — with meanings and origins.

How It Works

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language. Words can be decomposed into one or more morphemes, each carrying its own meaning.

Types of Morphemes

• Root (free morpheme): the core meaning-bearing part of a word that can often stand alone. For example, happy in "unhappiness" or believe in "unbelievable."
• Prefix (bound morpheme): attached before the root to modify its meaning. For example, un- means "not," pre- means "before," and re- means "again."
• Suffix (bound morpheme): attached after the root to change the word's meaning or grammatical category. For example, -ness turns an adjective into a noun, -able turns a verb into an adjective.

Origins

English morphemes come from many language families. Germanic roots form the core of everyday English, while Latin and Greek contribute heavily to academic and scientific vocabulary. Understanding morpheme origins helps decode unfamiliar words and reveals connections between seemingly unrelated terms.

This tool uses a built-in dictionary of common English morphemes. All processing runs entirely in your browser — no data is sent to any server.