Cis-

//sɪs// prefix

prefix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Prefix
  1. 1
    On this side of. morpheme

    "cis- + alpine → cisalpine (“on this [the Roman] side of the Alps”)"

  2. 2
    Forming names of chemical compounds in which two atoms or groups are situated on the same side of some plane of symmetry passing through the compound. morpheme, physical

    "cis- + diazene → cis-diazene"

  3. 3
    Not trans. morpheme

    "cis- + gender → cisgender"

  4. 4
    Not trans.; Being, or pertaining to being, cis. broadly, morpheme

    "cis- + sexism → cissexism"

Example

More examples

"cis- + alpine → cisalpine (“on this [the Roman] side of the Alps”)"

Etymology

From the Latin preposition cis (“on this side of”). The earliest known sexuality-related use of the prefix in any language was in a 1914 German-language book on sexology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of the prefix in the context of gender in English dates from 1994.

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