Word.ws English Dictionary

-nik

-nik suffix: used to form nouns denoting a person who exemplifies, endorses, or is associated with a specified thing or quality, often a particular ideology or preference.

Suffix

-nik (noun-forming suffix, plural -niks or -niki or -nikim)

  1. (derogatory, sometimes) Used to form nouns denoting a person who exemplifies, endorses, or is associated with a specified thing or quality, often a particular ideology or preference.

Forms of -nik

plural-niks
plural-niki
plural-nikim

Origin of -nik

From the Slavic suffix represented by Russian -ник (-nik). This suffix experienced a surge in English coinages for nicknames and diminutives after the Soviet launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957. Its usage in English is heavily influenced by Yiddish usage of ־ניק (-nik) and similar borrowed words (nogoodnik, nudnik, kibbutznik).

Questions about -nik

What does -nik mean?
-nik means used to form nouns denoting a person who exemplifies, endorses, or is associated with a specified thing or quality, often a particular ideology or preference.
What part of speech is -nik?
-nik is a suffix.

Words near -nik in the dictionary

  1. -netant
  2. -nicline
  3. -nidazole
  4. -nidipine
  5. -nigger
  6. -nik
  7. -niki
  8. -nikim
  9. -niks
  10. -nom
  11. -nomial

Source and license

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