Un-
prefix ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 not morpheme
"un- + educated → uneducated (“not educated”)"
- 2 the inverse of a specified action morpheme
"un- + dress → undress (“to take one's clothes off”)"
- 3 Used for the digit one to form systematic element names of elements whose existence has been predicted, and which have not yet been given a trivial name. morpheme
"un- (“1”) + bi- (“2”) + un- (“1”) + -ium (element suffix) → unbiunium (“element 121”)"
- 4 lack of morpheme
"un- + conformity → unconformity (“lack of conformity”)"
- 5 deprive of, release from, free from, remove from, extract from morpheme
"un- + cage → uncage (“to release from a cage”)"
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- 6 Used to form large numbers as the first in the sequence. morpheme
"un- + decillion (“10³³”) → undecillion (“10³⁶”)"
- 7 contrary to traditional norms; unconventional morpheme
"un- + conference → unconference"
- 8 intensifying a verb that already suggests opposition or removal morpheme, rare
"un- + loosen → unloosen"
Example
More examples"un- + educated → uneducated (“not educated”)"
Etymology
From Middle English un-, from Old English un-, from Proto-West Germanic *un-, from Proto-Germanic *un-, from Proto-Indo-European *n̥-. Cognate with Scots un-, on- (“un-”), North Frisian ün-, Saterland Frisian uun-, West Frisian ûn-, on-, Dutch on-, Low German un-, on-, German un-, Danish u-, Swedish o-, Norwegian u-, Icelandic ó-. More distant cognate with Latin in-, Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) (whence English a-, modern Greek α- (a-)) and Sanskrit अ- (a-). Doublet of in- and a-.
From Middle English on-, from Old English on-, ond-, and- (“against, facing, toward; in return, back, without”), from Proto-West Germanic *anda-, from Proto-Germanic *anda-, *andi- (“against”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂énti (“across, forth, forward, ahead”), from *h₂énts (“end, limit, forehead”). In some cases the meaning is influenced by un- (“not”, etymology 1).
From Latin ūnus.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.