Word.ws English Dictionary

-esce

/-ˈɛs/

-esce suffix: used to form verbs from nouns, following the pattern of verbs derived from Latin verbs ending in -esco.

Suffix

-esce (verb-forming suffix, third-person singular simple present -esces, present participle -escing, simple past and past participle -esced)

  1. Used to form verbs from nouns, following the pattern of verbs derived from Latin verbs ending in -esco

Forms of -esce

third-person singular present-esces
present participle-escing
past participle-esced
past-esced

Origin of -esce

From Latin -ēscō (“to grow, become a certain way”, an inchoative suffix). Compare -ish (Etymology 2).

Questions about -esce

What does -esce mean?
-esce means used to form verbs from nouns, following the pattern of verbs derived from Latin verbs ending in -esco.
What part of speech is -esce?
-esce is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -esce?
-esce is pronounced /-ˈɛs/.

Words near -esce in the dictionary

  1. -eroo
  2. -eroonie
  3. -ers
  4. -ery
  5. -es
  6. -esce
  7. -esced
  8. -escence
  9. -escent
  10. -esces
  11. -escing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -esce (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.

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