-ary

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English -arie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman -arie and Old French -aire, and directly borrowed from Latin -ārius, with the feminine -āria and the neuter -ārium.^[2][3][4][5] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *-yo- (“of or belonging to”).^[4] Occasionally it instead represents -āris, the source of -ar, because French levelled both endings under -aire.^[2][6][5] The same Latin suffix came by an earlier route into French as -ier, which reached English in primer and carpenter.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Latin -ārius meant connected with or pertaining to.^[5][4][2] It went on nouns (honōrārius), adjectives (prīmārius) and adverbs (contrārius).^[5] Many of these adjectives served as nouns: a man engaged in something in the masculine, and in the neuter a thing or place, as with salārium and vīvārium.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Words that survived in everyday French had -ier, but later learned adaptations had -aire, Anglo-Norman and Middle English -arie, later -arye and now -ary.^[2] It has become the regular form in which English adapts Latin words in -ārius and -ārium and French ones in -aire, and on which it models new words such as budgetary.^[2][6][3] Words in -āris that took this ending include capillary, exemplary and military, where -ar would have been more regular.^[2][6] Separately, mathematics and logic have since at least 1940 used -ary as a word of its own after a symbol, as in n-ary, taken from unary and binary.^[2]

Timeline

• 1387 – secretary.^[2]
• 1460 – military, from Latin -āris.^[2]
• 1480 – dictionary.^[2]
• 1940 – -ary after a symbol, in E. T. Bell.^[2]

Meanings

Suffix

1. Forming adjectives that mean of, relating to or connected with something: budgetary, cautionary.^[7][3][2]
2. Forming nouns for a person connected with or engaged in something: functionary, missionary.^[7][3][2]
3. Forming nouns for a thing or place connected with something: aviary, commentary, seminary.^[7][3][2]

Word family

• unary
• binary
• ternary
• quaternary
• quinary
• contrary
• dictionary
• library
• military
• primary
• secretary

Related words

• -ar
• -arium
• -er
• -ory

Usage notes

American speakers usually keep a full vowel when an unstressed syllable comes before the suffix, while British speakers usually reduce it whatever the stress.^[3][8]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press