| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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8. Word Formation: Plurals, Possessives, Affixes, and Compounds
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| § 3. ad- |
| The word element ad- is not an active prefix in English; that is, it is not used to create new words. It comes from the Latin preposition ad, meaning “to, toward, on top of.” In Latin, this preposition became a prefix, and when it was followed by c, f, g, l, n, r, s, or t, it became ac, af, ag, al, an, ar, as, or at, respectively. Thus Latin ad- is easy to see in English words such as adhere, admit, and adverse, but it is not so obvious in words such as affix, apply, and attend. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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