Word.ws English Dictionary

-ome

/ˌəʊm/US/ˌoʊm/

-ome suffix: a mass of something.

Suffix (1)

-ome

  1. A mass of something.

Suffix (2)

-ome

  1. The complete whole of a class of substances for a species or an individual.

Origin of -ome

Alteration of -oma, from Ancient Greek -ωμα (-ōma). Only partially cognate to -some (“body”), from σῶμα (sôma, “body”), in that both share the case ending -μα (-ma), but the ω is unrelated.

Back-formation from mitome, reinforced by chromosome. Early examples include biome (1916) and genome, from German Genom (1920). Some association with genetics due to occurrence in chromosome and genome.

Words formed from -ome

Questions about -ome

What does -ome mean?
-ome means a mass of something.
What part of speech is -ome?
-ome is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -ome?
-ome is pronounced /ˌəʊm/ (UK).

Words near -ome in the dictionary

  1. -oma
  2. -omas
  3. -omata
  4. -omatosis
  5. -omatous
  6. -ome
  7. -ometer
  8. -ometry
  9. -omia
  10. -omic
  11. -omics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ome (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--ome.wav.

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