Word families, roots and origins · Grade 8
Many English words are built from roots that come from Latin and Greek. If you know the root, you can often work out a new word: tele means far away, so a telescope looks at things far away. A word family is a group of words made from the same root word: act, action, actor, active.
Key facts
- Latin roots: port carry (transport), dict say (dictionary), spect look (inspect), struct build (construct), rupt break (erupt), aud hear (audience), vis see (visible).
- Greek roots: tele far away (television), graph write (autograph), phon sound (microphone), bio life (biology), geo earth (geography), micro very small (microscope), therm heat (thermometer).
- Number roots: mono one (monorail), tri three (triangle), cent a hundred (century).
- A word family shares a root word and its meaning: help, helpful, helpless, helper. Prefixes and suffixes make the new words.
- Knowing the family helps with spelling: sign → signature explains the silent g; music → musician explains the c.