How To Use Suffixes In Italian Grammar

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Nouns, adverbs or adjectives may be joined with Suffixes. Non-accented vowels should not be used in conjunction with using suffixes. Suffixes change the meaning of the base word. Some of the most common suffixes used in Italian grammer include –ino, -icino, -ello etc. These express admiration, description, size, appreciation, etc.

E.g. in case of ucello, one can use the suffix ucellino, which translates to “Little Bird” thus changing the base word “Bird” and adding an adjective to it.

Suffixes are also used to form pejoratives, augmentatives and diminutives. To suggest something is bigger in size, once can use “-one”.

E.g. for “naso” which means nose, you can add –one to naso giving nasone, and change the meaning to big nose.

Similarly, you can use –accio as a suffix to a noun to address a defect, negative expression.

E.g. adding –accio to “ragazzo” (boy) it changes to “ragazzaccio” which translates to “bad boy”.