What is a suffix?

• A. A letter or group of letters added to the end of a root word to change its meaning.
• B. A letter added to the beginning of a word to change its part of speech.
• C. A punctuation mark that ends a sentence.
• D. An accent mark over vowels.

Answer: (B)

A suffix is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a root word to change its meaning or its part of speech. It’s how we form related words and adjust how a word functions in a sentence. For example, adding -ing to read gives reading (changing it to a noun/verb form), and adding -ful to care makes careful (turning a noun into an adjective). In contrast, a prefix sits at the beginning of a word, like un- or re-, and punctuation or accent marks are different kinds of marks, not suffixes.