infix

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The Word of the Day for May 13 is:

infix   \IN-fiks\   noun 
     : a derivational or inflectional affix appearing in the body of a word 

Example sentence: 
     "In addition to suffixes and prefixes, the language [Inuktitut] has 
infixes, denoting tense or gender...." (Stephanie Nolen Iqaluit, _The 
Independent_, July 29, 2000)

Did you know? 
     Like prefixes and suffixes, infixes are part of the general class of 
affixes ("sounds or letters attached to or inserted within a word to produce a 
derivative word or an inflectional form"). Infixes are relatively rare in 
English, but you can find them in the plural forms of some words. For example, 
"cupful," "spoonful," and "passerby" can be pluralized as "cupsful," 
"spoonsful," and "passersby," using "s" as an infix. Another example is the 
insertion of an (often offensive) intensifier into a word, as in 
"fan-freakin'-tastic." Such whole-word insertions are sometimes called 
"infixes," though this phenomenon is more traditionally known as "tmesis." 





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