Word families: building possibilities...
Words often come in families. You can expand your vocabulary by becoming familiar
with these word families and this can also enable you to become a more fluent speaker
and writer of English. If you know all the possible words within a word family, you can
express yourself in a wider range of ways. For example, if you know the verb and the
noun forms related to the adjective boring, you can say:
• The lesson was boring.
• The lesson bored me.
• That lesson was such a bore.
An extra reason for paying attention to word families is that for some exams you
have to know them.
In the list below, the words printed in bold are words which are very common and
important to learn. The other words in the same row are words in the same family,
often formed with prefixes and suffixes. Sometimes they are just a different part of
speech (e.g. anger, which is a noun and a verb). All the words in this list have entries
in the dictionary except for some beginning with un-, im-, in- or ir-, or ending with
-ly or -ily, where the meaning is always regular. Sometimes words in a word family
can have meanings which are quite different from others in the group, so you should
always check in the dictionary if you are not sure of the meaning.
1522
ability, disability, inability
able, unable, disabled
enable, disable
ably
acceptance
acceptable, unacceptable, accepted
accept
acceptably,
unacceptably
accident
accidental
accidentally
accuracy, inaccuracy
accurate, inaccurate
accurately, inaccurately
accusation, the accused, accuser
accusing
accuse
accusingly
achievement, achiever
achievable
achieve
act, action, inaction, interaction,
acting
act
reaction, transaction
activity, inactivity
active, inactive, interactive, proactive activate
actively
addition
additional
add
additionally
admiration, admirer
admirable
admire
admirably
advantage, disadvantage
advantageous, disadvantaged
advantageously
advertisement, advertiser,
advertise
advertising
advice, adviser
advisable, inadvisable, advisory
advise
agreemen