Augmentative

In modern English, augmentatives can be created with the prefixes:

• over-: e.g., overlord and overseer.
• grand-: e.g., grandmaster and grandparent.
• super-: e.g., supermarket and superpower.
• mega-: e.g., megastore and megastar.
• arch-: e.g., archrival and archangel.

Since the early 1990s, the prefix über- or uber- has also frequently been used as a borrowing from German.[1] The suffix -zilla, expressing a monstrous quality, can also be considered an augmentative form.

In some parts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the prefix "auld" is used as an augmentative, and a pejorative in some cases. An example of this is using "auld'un" or "auld one" to describe one's parents/grandparents.

In modern Dutch, augmentatives are usually created with the prefixes:

• over-: e.g., overgewicht and oververhitting ("overweight" and "overheating")
• groot-: e.g., grootmeester and groothandel ("grandmaster" and "wholesaler")
• super-: e.g., supermarkt and supermacht ("supermarket" and "superpower").
• mega-: e.g., megacontract and megabioscoop ("a very big contract" and "a very large movie theater")

There are also prefixes that can be used for some adjectives:

• bloed-: e.g., bloedmooi and bloedeigen ("very beautiful" and "very own")[2]
• steen-: e.g., steenrijk and steengoed ("very rich" and "very good"; lit. "stone rich" and "stone good")
• kei-: e.g., keihard and keileuk ("very fast/hard/etc." and "very fun", lit. "boulder hard" and "boulder fun")

In German, there are different ways to build augmentatives. They are rarely used prefixes:

• un-, for instance in Unzahl "huge number", Unsumme "huge sum", Unmenge "huge quantity". Mostly used for negation, however (e.g. Unglück "bad luck", Unsinn "nonsense"), and occasionally in a pejorative sense (Unwetter "bad weather", Untier "monster", lit. "un-creature").
• ur-, for instance, uralt "ancient"
• über-, for instance, Übermensch (q.v.)
• aber-, for instance, abertausend "thousands".
• mega-, for example megageil "mega-cool"
• ultra-, for example ultracool
• voll-, for example Vollpfosten "idiot", lit. "total post"

In Swedish the way to build augmentative is to add one of many prefixes before the word. This can be done on words in most word classes. The most common prefixes are: jätte- "giant", bauta-, mega-. For example:

• hus "house" → megahus "gigantic house"
• snabb "fast" → jättesnabb "very fast"
• sten "rock" → bautasten "boulder"

There are many synonyms to jätte-, although only when jätte- means "very", not big. Some of these synonyms are: as-, gör-, svin-, skit-, and ur- although, as written above, these do not change the size of a noun but just change e.g. gul "yellow" to jättegul "very yellow". The use of prefixes to build augmentatives is quite colloquial and is seldom used in formal text and speech, where adjectives and adverbs are used instead.

Italian has several augmentatives:

• -one, -ona, found also in several English loanwords from Italian, often via French:[3] minestrone (< minestra 'soup'); provolone cheese (< provola 'a kind of cheese'); cartone (< carta 'paper') appears in English carton and cartoon; (obsolete, regional) ballone (< possibly from balla 'ball', but perhaps a French formation being the proper Italian word "palla"[4]); millione 'million' (< mille 'thousand');

Suffixes -accio, -accia, and -astro, -astra, also exist, but they are used to form pejorative words, with no properly augmentative meaning: coltellaccio (< coltello 'knife'; gives English cutlass); the family name Carpaccio.

In Portuguese, the most common augmentatives are the masculine -ão (sometimes also -zão or -zarrão) and the feminine -ona (or -zona), although there are others, less frequently used. E.g. carro "car", carrão "big car"; homem "man", homenzarrão "big man"; mulher "woman", mulherona "big woman".

Sometimes, especially in Brazilian Portuguese, the masculine augmentative can be applied to a feminine noun, which then becomes grammatically masculine, but with a feminine meaning (e.g. "o mulherão" instead of "a mulherona" for "the big woman"); however, such cases usually imply subtle meaning twists, mostly with a somewhat gross or vulgar undertone (which, nonetheless, is often intentional, for the sake of wit, malice or otherwise; so, mulherão actually means not a big woman, but a particularly sexy one).

In Romanian there are several augmentative suffixes: -oi/-oaie, -an/-ană etc. (masculine/feminine pairs). They originate from Latin -ō (acc. sg. -ōnem), the origin of the other Romance augmentative suffixes. The archaic form has survived unchanged in Banat (and in Aromanian) as -on', -oan'e. As in other Romance languages, a feminine base word may have masculine or feminine forms in the augmentative. Examples:

• casă (f.) → căsoi (n.), căsoaie (f.)
• piatră (f.) → pietroi (n.)
• băiat (m.) → băieţoi (m.)
• băiat (m.) → băietan (m.)
• fată (f.) → fetișcană (f.)

In Spanish, -o becomes -ón and -a becomes -ona most frequently, but -ote/-ota and -azo/-aza (also meaning -blow) are also commonly seen. Others include -udo/-uda, -aco/-aca, -acho/-acha, -uco/-uca, -ucho/-ucha, -astro/-astra and -ejo/-eja. More detail at Spanish nouns.

In Bulgarian, as in Russian, mainly with -ище.

In Polish there is a variety of augmentatives formed with suffixes, for example: żaba (a frog) → żabucha / żabsko / żabisko / żabula; or kamień (a stone) → kamulec / kamior / etc.

In Russian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with prefixes (including loans from Latin) and suffixes, including -ище and -ин for example: дом (the house) домище (great house) домина (huge house). To provide an impression of excessive qualities the suffix -га can be used for example: ветер (the wind), ветрюга (strong wind).

In Croatian and Serbian there is a variety of augmentative nouns formed with suffixes:[5][6][7][8]

• -ina, e.g. brdo, n. ("hill") + ina → brdina
• -čina, e.g. majmun, m. ("monkey") + čina → majmunčina
• -etina, e.g. kuća, f. ("house") + etina → kućetina
• -erina, e.g. kuća + erina → kućerina
• -urina, e.g. ptica, f. ("bird") + urina → ptičurina
• -ešina, e.g. glava, f. ("head") + ešina → glavešina
• -uština, e.g. bara, f. ("pond") + uština → baruština
• -ušina, e.g. pijetao, m. ("rooster") + ušina → pjetlušina
• -urda, e.g. noga, f. ("leg") + urda → nožurda
• -ura, e.g. djevojka, f. ("girl") + ura → djevojčura
• -eskara, e.g. ljudi, m., pluralia tantum ("people") + eskara → ljudeskara, singular ("big person")
• -uskara, e.g. baba, f. ("grandma") + uskara → babuskara
• -erda, e.g. ruka, f. ("arm") + erda → ručerda

Augmentative nouns are either pejoratives or hypocorisms.[9] All augmentative nouns have female grammatical gender. Some nouns can have their augmentatives formed with different suffixes, for example, see 'kuća' above.

In Hrvatska gramatika, Barić et al. do not classify adjectives formed with suffixes which intensify an action or property as augmentatives. The augmentative prefixes for adjectives listed in Hrvatska gramatika are pre- ("excessively"; or excess of a favorable property),[10] hiper- ("hyper-"), super- and ultra-.[8] According to Hrvatska enciklopedija, augmentative verbs surpass their base verb with their intensity.[7] However, by defining augmentative verbs as an action done excessively,[11] Hrvatska gramatika only lists pre- ("over-") as an augmentative verb.[8]

Form II of the Arabic verb often has an augmentative sense, which may indicate intensity (intensive) or repetition (frequentative).[12]

Chichewa noun class 7 prefix chi- doubles up as augmentative marker. For example, chindege which is a huge plane as opposed to ndege which is just a regular plane.

In Esperanto, the -eg- suffix is included before the final part-of-speech vowel. For example, domo (house) becomes domego (mansion). See Esperanto vocabulary.

Interlingua does not have an augmentative suffix, but international prefixes such as super-, hyper-, mega- can be used as augmentatives. See also Interlingua grammar.