Suffixes like “-less” rework current phrases, primarily adjectives and sometimes nouns, into new adjectives with negated or diminished meanings. As an illustration, “hope” turns into “hopeless,” signifying an absence of hope, and “energy” transforms into “powerless,” indicating a scarcity of energy. These formations supply concise expressions of negation or deficiency.
This morphological course of is very productive in English, contributing considerably to the language’s flexibility and expressive capability. Traditionally, the suffix derives from Outdated English “-las,” that means “free from” or “with out,” demonstrating a long-standing presence within the language’s evolution. The power to readily create these unfavourable adjectives contributes to nuanced communication, permitting for exact descriptions of qualities and states.