| 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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| § 52. -ty |
| The suffix -ty forms nouns from adjectives. The word subtlety, for example, means “the quality or state of being subtle.” Subtlety comes from the Latin noun subtilitas, from the adjective subtilis (“subtle”) plus -tas, the ancestor of our suffixes -ty and -ity. Some other words that end in -ty are certainty, cruelty, frailty, loyalty, and royalty. In English the suffix -ity is now more common, as in eccentricity, electricity, technicality, peculiarity, and similarity. The suffixes -ty and -ity can be compared in meaning to the suffix -ness. Whereas -ty and -ity come from Latin, however, -ness comes from Old English. | 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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