What does "-cy" mean?

Used to form nouns of state, condition or quality.

What is a synonym for "-cy"?

Common synonyms include: ate, itude, ity, ness, th.

-cy

//-si// suffix

suffix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Suffix

1
Used to form nouns of state, condition or quality. morpheme
"private + -cy → privacy"
2
Used to form nouns of rank or office. morpheme
"president + -cy → presidency"

Synonyms

All synonyms

ate itude ity ness th

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman -cie, ultimately from Latin -cia, -tia, Ancient Greek -κια (-kia), -τια (-tia), originally variants of Latin -ia and Ancient Greek -ια (-ia), -ία (-ía) or -εια (-eia). Original loan words like pharmacy and papacy could have formed the model.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.