Augmentative

An augmentative (abbreviated AUG) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive.

Since overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque, in some languages augmentatives are used primarily for comical effect or as pejoratives.

Many languages have augmentatives for nouns; some have augmentatives for verbs.

Germanic languages

English

In modern English, augmentatives can be created with the prefixes:

• over-: e.g., overlord and overseer.
• grand-: e.g., grandmaster and grandparent.
• super-: e.g., supermarket and superpower.
• mega-: e.g., mega store and megastar.
• arch-: e.g., archrival and archangel.

Since the early 1990s, the prefix über- has also frequently been used as a borrowing from German.

Dutch

In modern Dutch, augmentatives are usually created with the prefixes:

• over-: e.g., overgewicht and oververhitting (resp. "overweight" and "overheating")
• groot-: e.g., grootmeester and groothandel (resp. "grandmaster" and "wholesaler")
• super-: e.g., supermarkt and supermacht (resp. "supermarket" and "superpower").
• mega-: e.g., megacontract and megabioscoop (resp. "a very big contract," and "a very large movie theater")

There are also prefixes that can be used for some adjectives:

• bloed-: e.g., bloedmooi and bloedeigen (resp. "very beautiful" and "very own")
• steen-: e.g., steenrijk and steengoed (resp. "very rich" and "very good"; lit. "stone rich" and "stone good")
• kei-: e.g., keihard and keileuk (resp. "very fast/hard/&c." and "very fun", lit. "boulder hard" and "boulder fun")

German

In German, there are different ways to build augmentatives. They are rarely used prefixes:

• Un-, for instance in Unzahl, Unsumme, Unmenge, Untiefe.
  Un- is more often used for negation (e.g. Unglück, Unsinn).
  This leads sometimes to confusion: Untiefe when referring to water can mean either very deep or shallow water.

• Ur-, for instance, uralt.

• Über-, for instance, "Übermensch".

• Aber-, for instance, Abertausend.

Hellenic languages

Greek

Modern Greek has a variety of augmentative suffixes: -α, -άρα, -αράς, ΄-αρος, -άκλα, -ακλάς, ΄-ακλας.

Latin and Romance languages

Italian

Italian has several augmentatives:

• -one, -ona, found also in several English loanwords from Italian, often via French: minestrone (< minestra 'soup'); provolone cheese (< provola 'ewe'); cartone (< carta 'paper') appears in English carton and cartoon; (obsolete, regional) ballone (< possibly from balla 'ball', but perhaps a French formation being the proper Italian word "palla"); millione 'million' (< mille 'thousand');
• -accio, -accia (mainly a pejorative): coltellaccio (< coltello 'knife'; gives English cutlass); the family name Carpaccio;
• -astro, -astra.

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the most common augmentatives are the masculine -ão (sometimes also -zão or -zarrão) and the feminine -ona (or -zona), although there are others, less frequently used. E.g. carro "car", carrão "big car"; homem "man", homenzarrão "big man"; mulher "woman", mulherona "big woman".

Sometimes, especially in Brazilian Portuguese, the masculine augmentative can be applied to a feminine noun, which then becomes grammatically masculine, but with a feminine meaning (e.g. "o mulherão" instead of "a mulherona" for "the big woman"); however, such cases usually imply subtle meaning twists, mostly with a somewhat gross or vulgar undertone (which, nonetheless, is often intentional, for the sake of wit, malice or otherwise; so, mulherão actually means not a big woman, but a particularly sexy one).

Romanian

In Romanian there are several augmentative suffixes: -oi/-oaie, -an/-ană etc. (masc/fem pairs). From an unattested Late Latin -onus, -ona, the origin of the other Romance augmentative suffixes. The archaic form has survived unchanged in Banat ( and in Aromanian) as -on', -oan'e As in other languages, a feminine base word may have masculine or feminine forms in the augmentative. Examples:

• casă (f.) -> căsoi (n.), căsoaie (f.)
• piatră (f.) -> pietroi (n.)
• băiat (m.) -> băieţoi (m.)
• băiat (m.) -> băietan (m.)
• fată (f.) -> fetișcană (f.)

Spanish

In Spanish, -o becomes -ón and -a becomes -ona most frequently, but -ote/-ota and -azo/-aza (also meaning -blow) are also commonly seen. Others include -udo/-uda, -aco/-aca, -acho/-acha, -uco/-uca, -ucho/-ucha, -astro/-astra and -ejo/-eja. More detail at Spanish nouns.

Slavic languages

Bulgarian

In Bulgarian, as in Russian, mainly with -ище.

Polish

In Polish there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, for example: żaba (a frog) - żabucha - żabsko - żabisko - żabula or kamień (a stone) - kamulec - kamior etc.

Russian

In Russian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, including -ище and -ин for example: дом (the house) домище (great house) домина (huge house). To provide an impression of excessive qualities the suffix -га can be used for example: ветер (the wind), ветрюга (strong wind).

Serbo-Croatian

In Serbo-Croatian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, most commonly with -ina.

Semitic languages

Arabic

Form II of the Arabic verb often has an augmentative sense, which may indicate intensity (intensive) or repetition (frequentative).

International auxiliary languages

Esperanto

In Esperanto, the -eg- suffix is included before the final part-of-speech vowel. For example, domo (house) becomes domego (mansion). See Esperanto vocabulary.

Interlingua

Interlingua does not have an augmentative suffix, but international prefixes such as super-, hyper-, mega- can be used as augmentatives. See also Interlingua grammar.

See also

• Diminutive
• Affect (linguistics)
• Comparison (grammar)