-ous
/-əs/
-ous suffix: possession of.
Suffix
-ous
- possession of
- bulb + -ous → bulbous
- Synonyms:
- -ate
- presence of a quality in any degree (typically an abundance)
- courage + -ous → courageous
- joy + -ous → joyous
- relation or pertinence to
- aptonym + -ous → aptonymous
- arrhenotoky + -ous → arrhenotokous
- Used in chemical nomenclature to name chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a lower oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ic. For example sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃). See Inorganic nomenclature.
- Synonyms:
- -y
-ous meaning in Arabic and Persian
-ous in Arabic
- suffix to form adjectives
- ـِيّ -iyy
-ous in Persian
- suffix to form adjectives
- ـمند
Synonyms of -ous
Forms of -ous
| alternative form | -ious |
|---|---|
| alternative form | -tous |
| alternative form | -uous |
Origin of -ous
From Middle English -ous, from Old French -ous, -os, -us, from Latin -ōsus (“full of”). Doublet of -ose and -wise in unstressed position. Many English adjectives ending in -ous were taken from preexisting French or Latin adjectives that end in one of the above suffixes (e.g. envious corresponds directly to Old French envious which in turn corresponds directly to Latin invidiōsus). In addition, -ous (or the variant form -ious) has at times been attached to English nouns to form derived adjectives that lack precedents in French or Latin, such as slumberous from slumber or blizzardous from blizzard. It has also been used in some cases as a means of adapting adjectives borrowed from Latin that originally ended simply in -us, -a, -um (for example, obvious and previous are derived from Latin obvius and praevius, not *obviōsus or *praeviōsus).
Questions about -ous
- What does -ous mean?
- -ous means possession of.
- What is -ous in Arabic?
- -ous in Arabic is ـِيّ (-iyy). See -ous meaning in Arabic.
- What part of speech is -ous?
- -ous is a suffix.
- How do you pronounce -ous?
- -ous is pronounced /-əs/.
Words near -ous in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: -ous (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl--ous.wav.
Cite this entry: “-ous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.