-k
-k suffix: a suffix found in verbs of Middle English, Old English, usually with an intensive or frequentative effect.
Suffix (1)
-k
- A suffix found in verbs of Middle English, Old English, usually with an intensive or frequentative effect.
- tale, talk; steal, stalk; mire, mirk; hear, hark; fare, firk; peer, perk; yare, yark; gaw, gawk
Suffix (2)
-k
- A suffix found in nouns, usually with a diminutive effect.
- chine > chink; stale > stalk
Origin of -k
From Middle English -ken, -kien, from Old English -cian, from Proto-West Germanic *-ukōn, *-ikōn, from Proto-Germanic *-ukōną, *-ikōną. Cognate with West Frisian -kje, German -chen, Danish -ke, Swedish -ka, Faroese -ka. Perhaps related to Old English diminutive suffix -uc, -oc. More at -ock.
From Middle English -ke, from Old English -(u)c and -ca (diminutive suffix). More at -ock.
Questions about -k
- What does -k mean?
- -k means a suffix found in verbs of Middle English, Old English, usually with an intensive or frequentative effect.
- What part of speech is -k?
- -k is a suffix.
Words near -k in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -k (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: “-k.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-k. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.