-ee
-ee suffix: added to transitive verbs to form words meaning a person or thing that is the object of that verb (i.e., to whom or to which an action is done). Also the alternative form of -y.
Suffix (1)
-ee (noun-forming suffix, plural -ees)
- Added to transitive verbs to form words meaning a person or thing that is the object of that verb (i.e., to whom or to which an action is done).
- examine + -ee → examinee
- interview + -ee → interviewee
- Added to intransitive verbs to form words meaning a person or thing that is the subject of that verb (that is, who or that does an action).
- absent + -ee → absentee
- respond + -ee → respondee
- Used to form words meaning a person who is the other party to a contract or other transaction involving a person described by the corresponding word ending in -or.
- assign + -ee → assignee
- legate + -ee → legatee
- Antonyms:
- -or
- Used to form words meaning a person who has undergone a particular medical procedure.
- laryngectomy + -ee → laryngectomee
- Irregularly added to nouns to mean a person somehow associated with the object denoted by the noun.
- barge + -ee → bargee
- tender + -ee → tenderee
Suffix (2)
-ee
- Used to form diminutives.
- boot + -ee → bootee
- goat + -ee → goatee
Suffix (3)
-ee
- Used in mimicking English as stereotypically spoken by the Chinese.
- "No stealee. You no thinkee? Chinaman no thinkee stealee!" he said, earnestly.1897, The Outlook, volume 56, page 1044
- A Chinaman had a toothache, and phoned a dentist for an appointment. Doctor: "Two-thirty all right?" Chinaman: "Yes, tooth hurtee, all light. What time I come?"1938, Minnesota Journal of Education, volume 19, page 52
Also used as
-ee is also the alternative form of -y.
Synonyms of -ee
Antonyms
Forms of -ee
| plural | -ees |
|---|
Origin of -ee
From Middle English -ee, -ē, from Anglo-Norman and Old French -ee, French -é, -ée, endings forming past participle of verbs ending in -er. Doublet of -ate. More distantly related to inherited English -ed.
Perhaps a variation on -ie and -y
Most likely derived from broken English used by Chinese immigrants to America during the 17th to 19th centuries. The -ee was added by those speakers for final consonants in English words that do not exist in Cantonese phonology.
Questions about -ee
- What does -ee mean?
- -ee means added to transitive verbs to form words meaning a person or thing that is the object of that verb (i.e., to whom or to which an action is done).
- What part of speech is -ee?
- -ee is a suffix.
Words near -ee in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -ee (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: “-ee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.