Ex-
prefix ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 out of morpheme
"borrowed from Latin: extract, expel, except, expression, exclusion"
- 2 outside morpheme
"ex-directory; borrowed from Latin: exterior"
- 3 former (this meaning is probably a semantic extension from the sense of "out, away") morpheme
"ex-husband, ex-president, ex-wife"
- 4 Without, not possessing; lacking. morpheme
"excaudate, exstipulate"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"borrowed from Latin: extract, expel, except, expression, exclusion"
Etymology
From Middle English, from words borrowed from Middle French; from Latin ex (“out of, from”), from Proto-Indo-European *eǵ-, *eǵs- (“out”), *eǵʰs. Cognate with Ancient Greek ἐξ (ex, “out of, from”), Transalpine Gaulish ex- (“out”), Old Irish ess- (“out”), Old Church Slavonic изъ (izŭ, “out”), Russian из (iz, “from, out of”). For sense 3, compare sense 11 at Latin ex (indicates a change of state, (later) used before terms denoting an office to indicate that one has completed his term of office).
Related phrases
More for "ex-"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.