-ish
suffix ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Typical of, similar to, being like. morpheme
"Her face had a girlish charm."
- 2 An ending found on some verbs; see usage notes. idiomatic, morpheme
- 3 Somewhat, rather. morpheme
"Her face had a bluish tinge."
- 4 About, approximately. especially, morpheme
"We arrived at tennish. We arrived tennish."
- 5 Of, belonging, or relating to (a nationality, place, language or similar association with something). morpheme
"British, Cornish, Danish, English, Finnish, Irish, Jewish, Kentish, Polish, Scottish, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish etc."
Example
More examples"[…] ; for she had recently developed a magpie[-]ish tendency to appropriate and conceal trifling matters; […]"
Etymology
From Middle English -ish, -isch, from Old English -isċ (“-ish”, suffix), from Proto-West Germanic *-isk, from Proto-Germanic *-iskaz (“-ish”), from Proto-Indo-European *-iskos. Cognate with Dutch -s; German -isch (whence Dutch -isch); Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish -isk or -sk; Lithuanian -iškas; Russian -ский (-skij); and the Ancient Greek diminutive suffix -ίσκος (-ískos). Doublet of -esque and -ski.
From Middle English -ishen, -ischen, -issen, from Old French -iss-, -is- (a termination of the stem of some forms [present participle, etc.] of certain verbs), from Latin -ēscere, -īscere (an inchoative suffix), the formative -esc-, -isc- (-sc-, Greek -σκ- (-sk-)) being ultimately cognate with English -ish (Etymology 1). See -esce, -escent, etc.
More for "-ish"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.