Word.ws English Dictionary

-ent

/ənt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

India/enʈ/

-ent suffix: causing, doing, or promoting a certain action.

Suffix

-ent

  1. Causing, doing, or promoting a certain action.
    • absorbent, efficient
  2. One that causes, does, or promotes a certain action.
    • agent, deterrent

Origin of -ent

From Middle English -ent, also -ant, -aunt, etc., from Old French -ent and its source Latin -ēns (accusative singular -entem), suffix of present participles of verbs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugations.

Questions about -ent

What does -ent mean?
-ent means causing, doing, or promoting a certain action.
What part of speech is -ent?
-ent is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -ent?
-ent is pronounced /ənt/.

Words near -ent in the dictionary

  1. -enes
  2. -ening
  3. -ennial
  4. -ens
  5. -ensian
  6. -ent
  7. -entan
  8. -enyl
  9. -eous
  10. -ept
  11. -er

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ent (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--ent.wav.

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