658: intinction, extinct, extinguish, distinguish Sep 26, 2016

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Adding or removing prefixes from a word can be a fun and enlightening way of studying. 'Distinguish' for example, was formed irregularly from the French 'distinguer', but is from the Latin morphemes, 'dis-' meaning ‘apart’ and 'stinguere' meaning ‘put out’ ultimately from a word meaning ‘prick’. Even though that is an irregular formation, 'extinguish' was formed from the same word, except that the 'ex-', meaning 'out', emphasizes the meaning that we have today. Also from 'exstinguere' comes 'extinct', fairly logically. Here, however, prefixes do not help, since 'intinction' is not the opposite of 'extinction', or even related to it, as the prefix might suggest. In fact, this word comes from the Latin, 'tingere' meaning ‘dip’.

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