Pejorative suffix

A pejorative suffix is a suffix that attaches a negative meaning to the word or word-stem preceding it. There is frequent overlap between this and the diminutive form.

The pejorative suffix may add the sense of "a despicable example of the preceding," as in Spanish -ejo (see below). It can also convey the sense of "a despicable human having the preceding characteristic"; for instance, as in English -el (see below) or the development of the word cuckold from Old French cocu "cuckoo" + -ald, taken into Anglo-Saxon as cokewald and thus to the modern English word.

Examples of the pejorative suffix:

Basque

-txo

English

-ar, e.g. beggar

-ard, e.g. bastard (from Old French bast "pack-saddle", i.e. "child born in a pack-saddle")

-aster, e.g. poetaster, philosophaster (via Latin)

-el, e.g. wastrel (from "waste", i.e. "a wasteful person (pej.)")

-ista e.g. fashionista (sometimes used as a more '"playfully" pejorative than others, taken from Sandinista)

-nik, e.g. peacenik, neatnik (via Yiddish or Russian, where it is not necessarily pejorative)

Esperanto

-aĉ-, e.g. veteraĉo "foul weather" (from vetero "weather")

French

-ald/-ard/-aud, e.g. salaud "dirty person (from sale'' "dirt")

Hawaiian

-ā (-wā), e.g. lonoā "gossip" (from lono "news")

-ea, e.g. poluea "seasickness" (from polu "wet)

Italian

-accio(a) (or -uccio/a), e.g. boccaccia "ugly mug" (from bocca "mouth")

Japanese

-me, e.g. furiiza-me "That damn Freeza!" or kawaii yatsu-me "That darn cutie!"

Latin

-aster, denoting fraudulent resemblance, e.g. patraster "one who plays the father" (from pater "father")

Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin)

-ish, e.g. animosh "dog

Provençal

-asso, e.g. vidasso "wretched life" (from vido "life")

Russian

-iška (ишка)

-uxa (уха), e.g. černuxa, dramatic term for an unrelentingly bleak cinematic style (from čern- "black")

Spanish

-aco(a), e.g. pajarraco "large ugly bird" (from pajaro "bird)

-ote(a), e.g. discursote "long dull speech" (from discurso "speech")

References