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-o
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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See also: Appendix:Variations of "o"
Languages (37)
English
Afar • Albanian • Dutch • Esperanto • Finnish • Franco-Provençal • French • Garo • Gothic • Ido • Ingrian • Italian • Kapampangan • Latin • Lithuanian • Lower Sorbian • Mokilese • Northern Kurdish • Norwegian Nynorsk • Old Dutch • Old English • Old Galician-Portuguese • Old High German • Old Polish • Old Saxon • Polish • Portuguese • Romani • Romanian • Serbo-Croatian • Spanish • Swahili • Swedish • Turkish • Volapük • Welsh
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Afar • Albanian • Dutch • Esperanto • Finnish • Franco-Provençal • French • Garo • Gothic • Ido • Ingrian • Italian • Kapampangan • Latin • Lithuanian • Lower Sorbian • Mokilese • Northern Kurdish • Norwegian Nynorsk • Old Dutch • Old English • Old Galician-Portuguese • Old High German • Old Polish • Old Saxon • Polish • Portuguese • Romani • Romanian • Serbo-Croatian • Spanish • Swahili • Swedish • Turkish • Volapük • Welsh
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English
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /əʊ/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /əʉ/, [æ̠ʉ~ɐʉ]
- (General American) IPA(key): /oʊ/
- Homophones: o, owe, oh
Etymology 1
Perhaps from a special use of the interjection O, oh; and/or perhaps from o (“one”), from Middle English o, oo, variant of a, on, oon, an (“one”). See one and -y.
Alternative forms
Suffix
- A colloquializing suffix, typically appended to names, abbreviations of long words, or substantive uses of adjectives.
- 1991, Stephen Fry, chapter III, in The Liar, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 26:
- Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go. Old Biffo was jolly odd this morning. He gave me a lot of pi-jaw about slacking and then invited me to tea. No rotting! He did really.’
Usage notes
-o generally does not change the meaning of the word or name but only makes it more colloquial, as with cheapo and Jacko. It is often appended to clipped or elided forms of longer words, as with ambo and parmo. Occasionally, the terminal consonant of the clipped form is doubled for clarity of meaning or pronunciation, as with uggo and doggo. It sometimes does change the meaning of words, usually by being applied to adjectives to indicate a person with a pronounced trait, as with weirdo (“weird person”), or to nouns used metonymously to indicate a person with a pronounced connection to the other object, as with wino (“poor or vagrant alcoholic”). Especially in American English, some uses of this suffix are understood as dated slang, as with bucko and neato. The suffix is most frequently and widely encountered in Australian English, which has additional uses (such as rego for registration and nasho for national service) that are never or only extremely rarely encountered in other dialects.
Its meaning is very similar to some uses of -y and its use is particularly common where use of -y might cause misunderstanding, as with randy and rando, journey and journo, whiny and wino.
Derived terms
See also
Etymology 2
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.
Suffix
-o
- (humorous) Converts certain words to faux Italian or Spanish. Can be used with Spanish el for expressions such as el stinko.
- no problemo
Derived terms
Etymology 3
Rebracketing of typo.
Suffix
-o (plural -os)
- Added to verb stems to create a noun describing an error relating to the action described by the verb.
Derived terms
Derived terms
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Afar
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ó
Derived terms
References
Albanian
Etymology 1
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Pronunciation
Suffix
-ó
- Creates a second-person singular active imperative verb form from a non-verb.
- áfër (“close, nearby”, adverb/preposition) + -o → afró! (“bring closer”)
- báraz (“equal”, adverb) + -o → barazó! (“eqalize!”)
- kráhas (“arm in arm, side by side”, adverb/preposition) + -o → krahasó! (“compare!”)
- pástër (“clean”, adjective/adverb) + -o → pastró! (“cleanse”)
- zhúrmë (“noise”, noun) + -o → zhurmó! (“make a noise, scream!”)
Etymology 2
Particle
-o
- alternative form of o
Dutch
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Suffix
-o
- -o (suffix forming colloquial nouns, generally referring to persons)
Derived terms
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Esperanto
Etymology
- [1] Common to the masculine singular of the Romance languages, such as Italian (amico), the neuter singular common to all Slavic languages (окно (okno)), and the vowel of the Greek second declension syllabic nucleus -o, from which Greek and Esperanto plural -oj is also derived.
- [2] Perhaps from [1]; cf. Italian quello 'that', Russian то (to) 'then'
Pronunciation
Audio: (file)
Suffix
-o
- Nominal suffix. Most Esperanto nouns end in -o. (A few nouns end in -aŭ, and with some writers some feminine names end in -a.) The default vowel ending on the first element of a compound word, regardless of part of speech.
- -thing. (correlative ending.)
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Finnish
Etymology
Conflated:
- from Proto-Finnic *-o (forms action/result nouns), from Proto-Uralic *-w (originally as applied to stems ending in -a).
- from Proto-Finnic *-oi (variant/diminutive), from Proto-Uralic *-j (diminutive ending); the -o- is a re-extraction from the suffix being applied to stems ending in -a which was labialized by -j.
Suffix
-o (front vowel harmony variant -ö, linguistic notation -O)
- Forms result or action nouns from verbs.
- Forms variants or diminutives from a few nominal roots.
Usage notes
- Used deverbally especially with those verbs whose dictionary form (first infinitive) ends with -aa or -ää.
- Somewhat unusually, in words with few syllables, the front-vowel form -ö is used only with stems that contain what is considered a front vowel under harmony, i.e. -ä-, -ö- or -y-; if it only contains neutral vowels (e, i), the back-vocalic form -o is used, even though such words or stems have front vowel harmony by default. However, polysyllabic words containing only neutral vowels (e, i) still tend to use -ö.
Declension
Note that if the stem has gradation, it is (almost always) preserved.
Derived terms
See also
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Franco-Provençal
Pronoun
-o
- postpositive form of o
French
Etymology
Analogically extended from various clippings with etymological o, such as vélo, resto < vélocipède, restaurant. Its pronunciation perhaps had input from -aud.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-o (informal)
- Added to a clipped noun or adjective
Derived terms
See also
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Garo
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Suffix
-o
- (inflectional suffix) forms the locative case
Synonyms
- -no (“forms locative”)
See also
Gothic
Romanization
-o
- romanization of -𐍉
Ido
Etymology
Suffix
-o
Ingrian
Etymology 1
From Proto-Finnic *-o. Cognates include Finnish -o.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-o (front vowel variant -ö)
- Used to form result or action nouns from verbs.
- (rare) Used to form nouns denoting something related to the suffixed noun.
Declension
Derived terms
Etymology 2
From Proto-Finnic *-oi. Cognates include Finnish -o.
Pronunciation
Suffix
-o (front vowel variant -ö)
- Used to form diminutives.
Declension
Derived terms
Italian
Etymology 1
Inherited from Latin -us, from Proto-Indo-European *-os (creates action nouns from verbs).
Suffix
-o m (noun-forming suffix, plural -i)
Derived terms
Etymology 2
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Suffix
-o (past participle-forming suffix, feminine -a, masculine plural -i, feminine plural -e)
- (not productive) used with a verb stem to form a past participle
Derived terms
Etymology 3
Suffix
-o (non-lemma form of verb-forming suffix)
- (productive) used with a stem to form the first-person singular present of regular are and ere verbs and those -ire verbs that do not take -isc-
Kapampangan
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- Hyphenation: -ó
Suffix
-o
- indicates question and exclamation replacing the final vowel -u
- Mamasang libru → Mamasang libro?
- Reading a book → Are you reading a book?
- Mete ya ing pawu → Mete ya ing pawo?
- The turtle died → Did the turtle die?
- Ay nuku → Ay nuko.
- Oh, god → Oh, god!!
- Aru → Aro.
- Oh, my → Oh, my!!
Usage notes
- There are instances where the vowel -o is often disregarded and remains -u when an interrogative pronoun is present.
- The last vowel and the form it took depend on whether or not a question is being asked.
Related terms
Latin
Lithuanian
Lower Sorbian
Mokilese
Northern Kurdish
Norwegian Nynorsk
Old Dutch
Old English
Old Galician-Portuguese
Old High German
Old Polish
Old Saxon
Polish
Portuguese
Romani
Romanian
Serbo-Croatian
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Turkish
Volapük
Welsh
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