-ese
suffix ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Used to form adjectives and nouns describing things and characteristics of a city, region, or country, such as the people and the language spoken by these people. morpheme
"Faroese, Maltese, Milanese, Parmese, Portuguese, Viennese; Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese; Beninese, Congolese, Togolese"
- 2 Used to form nouns meaning the jargon or language used by a particular profession or being or in a particular context. morpheme
"journal + -ese → journalese"
Example
More examples"Faroese, Maltese, Milanese, Parmese, Portuguese, Viennese; Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese; Beninese, Congolese, Togolese"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *-iskos Proto-Germanic *-iskaz Proto-West Germanic *-iskbor. Late Latin -iscus ▲ Vulgar Latin -iscus Latin -ēnsis Old French -eisbor. Middle English -eys English -ese From Middle English -eys, from Old French -eis, from Latin -ēnsis and, less often, Late Latin -iscus. Generally used in place of more common equivalent suffixes such as -er and -an on the model of equivalent terms in Italian and Portuguese, particularly for Italian, Portuguese African, and East Asian places first widely discussed in Portuguese and Latin.
Related phrases
More for "-ese"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.