-ic

---

Etymology

From Middle English -ik, from Old French -ique, from Latin -icus, from Proto-Indo-European *-kos, formed with the i-stem suffix *-i- and the adjectival suffix *-kos, *-ḱos.

PIE *-kos on noun stems carried the meaning 'characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to', and on adjectival stems it acted emphatically.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɪk/

Suffix

1. Used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.

   Cyrillic

   acidic

2. (chemistry) Used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous. For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).

Related terms

• -adic
• -ical
• -ician
• -ics

Translations

• French: -ique
• German: -isch
• Italian: -ico
• Portuguese: -ico
• Russian: -ский
• Spanish: -ico

---

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.001