Morpheme

//ˈmɔː.fiːm// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a meaning. It may be a letter, a syllable, or otherwise.

    "Just as a regiment is ultimately made up of soldiers, so the sentence is of morphemes—they are its ultimate constituents."

  2. 2
    minimal meaningful language unit; it cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
accidenceaffixaffixationallomorphbound morphemeconjugation

Example

More examples

"The morpheme "homo" in "homosexual" and that in "Homo sapiens" are homonymous, terms that sound the same, but mean something different, the first meaning "same," whilst the latter meaning "human.""

Etymology

From French morphème. Ultimately from Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “shape, form”). By surface analysis, morph + -eme.

Related phrases

bound morphemecranberry morphemeempty morphemefree morphemenull morphemeroot morphemezero morphemebound morphemefree morphemeword form

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