Word.ws English Dictionary

-ae

/aɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

English/iː/

-ae is the plural of -a.

Meaning of -a

Suffix (1)

-a (plural -as or -ae)

  1. Marks singular nouns, with a foundation in Greek or Latin, often implying femininity, especially when contrasted with words terminating in -us.
  2. Changes an element or substance into an oxide.
    • magnesium + -a → magnesia

Suffix (2)

-a

  1. Marks nouns, with a foundation in Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese, implying femininity.
    • donna

Suffix (3)

-a

  1. Added for metrical reasons to songs, poetry and verse, or as an empty filler syllable to other speech.
    • A merry heart goes all the day
      Your sad tires in a mile-ac. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Suffix (4)

-a

  1. (informal) to (infinitive marker)
    • oughta

Suffix (5)

-a

  1. (informal) do (infinitive marker)
    • whatta

Forms of -ae

alternative form (dated)-æ

Origin of -ae

From Latin -ae (nominative plural).

Questions about -ae

What is -ae the plural of?
-ae is the plural of -a.
How do you pronounce -ae?
-ae is pronounced /iː/ (English).

Words near -ae in the dictionary

  1. -ades
  2. -adic
  3. -adol
  4. -adol-
  5. -ads
  6. -ae
  7. -aemia
  8. -aesthesia
  9. -aesthesis
  10. -afil
  11. -age

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ae (page history and authors); -a (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “-ae.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ae. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.