A. Common noun suffixes

-er / is used for the person who does an activity, e.g. writer, painter, worker, shopper, teacher. You can use -er with a wide range of verbs to make them into nouns.

Sometimes the -er suffix is written as -or (it is still pronounced /ə/). It is worth making a special list of these words as you meet them, e.g. actor, donor [person who donates something], operator, sailor, supervisor [person whose job is to make sure that other people do their jobs correctly, safely, etc.]

-er/-or are also used for things which do a particular job, e.g. pencil sharpener, bottle opener, grater, projector, stapler, coat hanger.

-er and -ee (pronounced /iː/) can contrast with each other meaning ‘person who does something’ (-er) and ‘person who receives or experiences the action’ (-ee), e.g. employer/employee /ɪmˈplɔɪˈiː/, sender, addressee, payee [e.g. of a sum of money].

-tion/-sion/-ion are used to form nouns from verbs, e.g. complication, pollution, reduction, alteration, donation, promotion, admission, action.

-ist [a person] and -ism [an activity or ideology] are used for people’s politics, beliefs and ideologies, and sometimes their profession (compare with -er/or professions above), e.g. Marxist, typist, physicist, terrorist, Buddhism, journalism.

-ist is also often used for people who play musical instruments, e.g. pianist, violinist, cellist.

-ness is used to make nouns from adjectives, e.g. goodness, readiness, forgetfulness, happiness, sadness, weakness. Note what happens to adjectives that end in -y.

B. Adjective suffixes

-able/-ible /bl/ with verbs means ‘can be done’, e.g. drinkable, washable, readable, forgivable, edible [can be eaten], flexible [can be bent]

C. Verb suffixes

-ise (or -ize, which is more common in American English) forms verbs from adjectives, e.g. modernise [make modern], commercialise, industrialise, computerise.

D. Other suffixes that can help you recognise the word class

• -ment: (nouns) excitement, enjoyment, replacement [the act of putting sb or sth in the place of sb or sth else]
• -ity: (nouns) flexibility [ability to change easily according to the situation], productivity, scarcity
• -hood: (abstract nouns, especially family terms) childhood, motherhood, brotherhood
• -ship: (abstract nouns, especially status) friendship, partnership, membership
• -ive: (adjectives) active, passive (in language, the passive is when the receiver of an action becomes the subject, e.g. The bank was robbed), productive [producing a positive large amount of something]
• -al: (adjectives) brutal, legal [related to or which follows the law]; (nouns) refusal, arrival
• -ous: (adjectives) delicious, outrageous [shocking and morally unacceptable], furious [very angry]
• -ful: (adjectives) hopeful, useful, forgetful
• -less: (adjectives) useless, harmless [which cannot hurt or damage anyone or anything], homeless
• -ify: (verbs) beautify, purify, terrify [cause someone to be extremely afraid]

The informal suffix -ish can be added to most common adjectives, ages and times to make them less precise, e.g. She’s thirtyish. He has reddish hair. Come about eightish.