Home > Terms > English, UK (UE) > Morpheme
Morpheme
In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.
In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes, the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound.
The concept morpheme differs from the concept word, as many morphemes cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a free morpheme.
English example: The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes "un-", (meaning not x) a bound morpheme, "-break-" a free morpheme, and "-able". "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both are affixes.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Synonym(s):
- Blossary:
- Industry/Domain: Language
- Category: Linguistics
- Company:
- Product:
- Acronym-Abbreviation:
Other Languages:
Member comments
Terms in the News
Featured Terms
Community medicine
The specialty that deals with the health and disease of a population or of a specified community. The goal is to identify health problems and needs, ...
Contributor
Featured blossaries
Browers Terms By Category
- Gardening(1753)
- Outdoor decorations(23)
- Patio & lawn(6)
- Gardening devices(6)
- BBQ(1)
- Gardening supplies(1)
Garden(1790) Terms
- General law(5868)
- Contracts(640)
- Patent & trademark(449)
- Legal(214)
- US law(77)
- European law(75)
Law(7373) Terms
- Bridge(5007)
- Plumbing(1082)
- Carpentry(559)
- Architecture(556)
- Flooring(503)
- Home remodeling(421)
Construction(10757) Terms
- Pesticides(2181)
- Organic fertilizers(10)
- Potassium fertilizers(8)
- Herbicides(5)
- Fungicides(1)
- Insecticides(1)