prefix

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English prefixen,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Middle French prefixer (“to fix in advance, predetermine”),^[6][5][7][4] and, the OED adds, its source borrowed from Latin praefīxus, the past participle of praefīgō (“to fasten in front; in later Latin also to determine beforehand”).^[6][7] The French verb is formed from pre- (“before”) and fixer (“to fix, place”),^[3][5][4] and is recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1430–31 in the sense of arranging or appointing beforehand.^[8] The Latin verb is made of prae- (“before”) and fīgō (“to fasten, fix”),^[2][3][9] from Proto-Indo-European *dheigw- (“to stick, fix”).^[2][3] The noun is borrowed from New Latin praefīxum, the neuter of the participle used as a noun,^{[6][3][5][9][10]} modelled on the grammatical use of the verb;^[6] Barnhart takes the noun of 1646 from the English verb, after an earlier New Latin plural praefixa (1614).^[4] In later use the verb was also formed afresh from pre- and fix.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fix, appoint or determine beforehand: 1415, in the records of the city of Norwich.^[6][4] Barnhart has the spelling perfixen from 1414,^[4] and Etymonline dates the verb to the early 15th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was about time: to settle something in advance.^[6][2] From the 1530s the verb took on a sense about order and place, to put material at the beginning of a book, first recorded in the Coverdale Bible (1538),^[6][4][2] and about 1600 it began to be used in grammar of putting a word or element before another word.^[2][6] The grammatical noun followed in 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica;^[6][4] Johnson (1755) defined it as a particle put before a word to vary its meaning.^[11] The noun widened in the 19th century to a title before a person's name (1830) and to a group of symbols at the start of a coded message (1876),^[6] and later to the word placed before the registered name of a pedigree animal (1893).^[6] Merriam-Webster records an adjective, used of an operator placed before its operands, from 1973.^[5] The older sense "to fix beforehand" survives mainly in the hyphenated form pre-fix.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 1415 – to fix or appoint beforehand.^[6][4]
• 1538 – to place at the beginning of a book or text.^[6][4]
• 1605 – in grammar, to place a word or element before a word.^[6]
• 1614 – the New Latin plural prefixa, used in English.^[4]
• 1646 – noun, an element placed at the beginning of a word.^[6][4][5]
• 1830 – a title used before a person's name.^[6]
• 1876 – a sequence of symbols at the start of a coded message.^[6]
• 1893 – in photography, to fix an image beforehand.^[6]
• 1973 – adjective, of an operator placed before its operands.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An affix attached to the beginning of a word or stem to change its meaning, such as pre- in prehistoric.^[12][5][6]
2. A title used before a person's name, such as Dr or Mrs.^[5][6]
3. A group of letters or digits placed at the start of a code, number or message, such as a telephone dialling code.^[6]
4. A word placed before the registered name of a pedigree animal to show where it was bred.^[6]
5. In logic, the quantifiers that come before the rest of a formula.^[5]
6. Something placed before something else.^[12]

Verb

1. To place something at the beginning, or add it in front: She prefixed a short note to the report.^[12][5][6]
2. In grammar, to add an element as a prefix to a word.^[12][6]
3. (archaic) To fix or appoint beforehand.^[5][6]

Adjective

1. Placing an operator before its operands, as in a notation.^[5]

Word family

• prefixal
• prefixally
• prefixable
• unprefixed

Related words

• fix
• pre-
• affix
• suffix
• infix
• fixture

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins