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Morpheme definition

môrfēm
The definition of a morpheme is the smallest unit in a language that still has meaning.

An example of a morpheme is -est in the word greatest.

noun
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(linguistics) The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning, such as "un-", "break", and "-able" in the word "unbreakable".

The word pigs consists of two morphemes: pig (a particular animal) and s (indication of the plural).

The word werewolves' consists of four morphemes: "were" (~ man), "wolf" (a particular animal), "es" (plural), and " ' " (indicating possessive).

noun
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A meaningful linguistic unit that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. The word man and the suffix -ed (as in walked ) are morphemes.
noun
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2
The smallest meaningful unit or form in a language: it may be an affix (Ex.: un- in undo or -er in doer) or a base (Ex.: do in undo or the single morpheme in house)
noun
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2
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Other Word Forms

Noun

Singular:
morpheme
Plural:
morphemes

Origin of morpheme

  • French morphème blend of Greek morphē form French phonème phoneme phoneme

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From French morphème.

    From Wiktionary

Morpheme Sentence Examples

  • However, a small group of verbs have no argument that corresponds to this agreement morpheme.

  • The term bound morpheme is then used to include both affixes and clitics.

  • As for the comparison of high versus low frequency morpheme pairs, a significant frequency effect was found in both subject and item analyzes.

  • Even more intractable problems arise where isolating what appears to be the same morpheme leaves behind a residue of uncertain status.

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Words near morpheme in the Dictionary