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-est

suffix — 2 senses

-est

suffix

US, UK /ɪst/ · AU /əst/

Etymology From Middle English -est, from Old English -est, -ost, from Proto-West Germanic *-ist, *-ōst, from Proto-Germanic *-istaz, *-ōstaz, related to comparative -er. Cognate of Afrikaans -ste, Dutch -st, German -(e)st, Danish -(e)st, Swedish -(a)st. Via PIE cognate with Ancient Greek -ιστος (-istos), see Pleistocene, protist.

1

Morpheme Used to form the superlative of adjectives and adverbs.

  • longest, biggest, fastest, motliest
Related terms
-most
Coordinate terms
-er

-est

suffix

Etymology From Middle English -est, -st, from Old English -est, -ast, -st, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *-zi, from Proto-Indo-European *-si. The -t was by transfer from inverted order where thou followed the verb, which also occurred in most dialects of Middle Dutch and Middle High German (compare modern German -st).

1

Archaic, Dialectal, Morpheme Used to form the second-person singular present tense and past tense of verbs. (if thou is the subject; not used with you)

  • goest, makest, wentest, madest
Related terms
-eth, thou

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.