| 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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| § 25. -ism |
| The suffix -ism is a noun suffix. That is, when added to words or word roots, -ism forms nouns. It comes from the Greek noun suffix -ismos and means roughly “the act, state, or theory of.” Nouns that end in -ism often have related verbs that end in -ize (criticism/criticize), related agent nouns that end in -ist (optimism/optimist), and related adjectives that end in -istic (optimistic). | 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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