| 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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| § 21. hyper- |
| The basic meaning of the prefix hyper- is “excessive or excessively.” For example, hyperactive means “highly or excessively active.” Hyper- comes from the Greek prefix huper-, which comes from the preposition huper, meaning “over, beyond.” Hyper- has been used actively in English since the 17th century and is now frequently used to make up new words, such as hypercritical and hypersensitive. In fact, most of the words in our language beginning with hyper- are relatively recent. Only a few, such as hyperbole, are of Greek origin. | 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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