-o
UK/əʊ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/əʉ/
-o suffix: a vocative or exclamative particle appended to street cries, nautical calls, or names to project a hail or shout.
Suffix (1)
-o (noun-forming suffix, plural -os or -oes)
- A vocative or exclamative particle appended to street cries, nautical calls, or names to project a hail or shout.
- smoke + -o → smoko
- milk + -o → milko
- A colloquializing suffix, typically appended to names, abbreviations of long words, or substantive uses of adjectives.
- kid + -o → kiddo
- sick + -o → sicko
Suffix (2)
-o
Suffix (3)
-o (noun-forming suffix, plural -os)
Forms of -o
| plural | -os |
|---|---|
| plural | -oes |
| comparative | more -o |
| superlative | most -o |
| alternative form | -oh |
Origin of -o
Originally a special use of the interjection O or oh appended to street cries and nautical calls to project a hail or shout (as in milk-oh, smoke-oh, and sail-ho). Its later use as a colloquializing noun suffix, particularly prominent in Australian English, developed from the substantivation of these cries (e.g., smoko), reinforced by early nautical adaptations of Mediterranean Lingua Franca or pseudo‐Spanish words (such as guardo). As noted by the Australian National Dictionary, this vocative “hailing” origin naturally led to its frequent attachment to personal names to form nicknames (e.g., John‐o, Jacko). Some senses may also derive from o (“one”), from Middle English o, oo, a variant of a, on, oon, an (“one”). See one and -y.
From many Spanish or Italian words that end in o. This ending in such Spanish or Italian words generally derives from -um, the accusative singular inflectional ending for masculine and neuter nouns in Latin.
Rebracketing of typo.
Words formed from -o
- stinko
- problemo
- enduro
- clicko
- copy-pasto
- hearo
- mouso
- printo
- scanno
- speako
- spello
- thinko
- writo
- agro
- aggro
- ambo
- ammo
- beano
- beardo
- boyo
- bucko
- cheapo
- combo
- commo
- convo
- daddy-o
- Davo
- distro
- doggo
- friendo
- hundo
- inspo
- journo
- kiddo
- lameo
- lardo
- lesbo
- litro
- neato
- parmo
- pinko
- posho
- preggo
- preso
- psycho
- rando
- resto
- righto
- sicko
- thicko
- thingo
- uggo
- wacko
- weirdo
- whammo
- wino
- wine-o
- yobbo
- arvo
- biffo
Questions about -o
- What does -o mean?
- -o means a vocative or exclamative particle appended to street cries, nautical calls, or names to project a hail or shout.
- What part of speech is -o?
- -o is a suffix.
- How do you pronounce -o?
- -o is pronounced /əʊ/ (UK).
Words near -o in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -o (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: “-o.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-o. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.