Word.ws English Dictionary

-ance

/-əns/

-ance suffix: added to an adjective or verb to form a noun indicating a state or condition, such as result or capacity, associated with the verb.

Suffix

-ance (noun-forming suffix, countable and uncountable, plural -ances)

  1. Added to an adjective or verb to form a noun indicating a state or condition, such as result or capacity, associated with the verb.
    • ally + -ance → alliance
    • perform + -ance → performance
  2. Added to a verb to form a noun indicating a process or action.
    • appear + -ance → appearance
    • resist + -ance → resistance

Forms of -ance

plural-ances
alternative form-ence
alternative form⠨⠑

Origin of -ance

From Middle English -aunce, -ance, from Anglo-Norman -aunce and continental Old French -ance, from Latin -ant-, -ent- + -ia, from stem of Latin -āns, -ēns.

Questions about -ance

What does -ance mean?
-ance means added to an adjective or verb to form a noun indicating a state or condition, such as result or capacity, associated with the verb.
What part of speech is -ance?
-ance is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -ance?
-ance is pronounced /-əns/.

Words near -ance in the dictionary

  1. -amine
  2. -amivir
  3. -amundo
  4. -an
  5. -ana
  6. -ance
  7. -ances
  8. -ancy
  9. -and
  10. -ander
  11. -andrian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ance (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: “-ance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.