Lesson 5: English Grammar Exercise Prefixes

Prefixes are placed before a word and change the meaning of the word. If you are not familiar with what certain prefixes mean you can completely change the meaning of a word and the message that is being conveyed may not make sense or you may interpret it incorrectly. It is important to know what prefixes are, how they are used, and how they affect words in the English language.

Prefix	Meaning	Examples
Anti-	Against	Antibiotic
Bi-	Two	Bicycle
Contra-	Against	Contradict
Di-	Two	Diameter
Dis-	Apart, Away from	Dissatisfied
Ex-	Former	Ex-employee
Ex-, E-	Go out from	Exit
Extra-	Beyond	Extraterrestrial
Hyper-	Extremely	Hyperactive
In-, Im-, Il-, Ir-	Negative, Not	Irresponsible, Impossible
Inter-	Between	Interaction
Intra-	With	Intracostal
Intro-	Inward	Introduction
Macro-	Large	Macroeconomics
Micro-	Tiny, Small	Microeconomics
Mis-	Wrong	Misunderstand
Mono-	One	Monolingual
Multi-	Many	Multilingual
Neo-	New	Neopolitan
Non-	Negative, Not	Non-Aggressive
Omni-	All	Omnipotent
Poly-	Many	Polymer
Post-	After	Postwar
Pre-	Before	Previous
Re-	Again	Reapply
Retro-	Backwards	Retroactive
Semi-	Half	Semi-annual
Sub-	Under	Submarine
Super-	Above	Supercede
Tri-	Three	Tricycle
Un-	Negative, Not	Unknown
Uni-	One	Unicycle

Exercise a: Describe what the words below mean based upon sentence context and what you have learned about prefixes..

1) There was an anti-war campaign going on in Austrailia.

2) Her ex-boyfriend hasn’t talked to her in years.

3) One of the computer’s microchips was damaged so we had to take the computer to be repaired.

4) Her new outfit was multi-colored and very fashionable.

5) The couple decided that a non-traditional wedding was the best choice for them.

6) The post-depression period left many people without money or food.

7) In retrospect, it was not a good idea to.

8) International relations are much better now.

9) He was mistaken to think that he could cheat.

10) He is an unreliable person. You can’t depend on him to do what he says he will do.