Thousands of English words are built from Greek and Latin roots. Bio means life (biology), geo means earth (geography), micro means small (microscope), dict means say (dictionary), and photo means light.
Roots often combine with prefixes and suffixes. Predict is pre (before) + dict (say): to say before it happens. Biography is bio (life) + graph (write): writing about someone's life.
When you meet a long word, break it into parts and think about what each part means.
Worked example
Use roots to explain “geology”.
- Geo means earth.
- -logy means the study of.
Answer:the study of the earth and its rocks
Key words
- root
- the part of a word that carries its core meaning
- prefix
- letters added at the start
- suffix
- letters added at the end
Practise this
New questions every time.
Common Core-referenced: L.5.4b