Morphemes in “antidisestablishmentarianism”
“antidisestablishmentarianism” has 7 morphemes: anti- + dis- + establish + -ment + -ary + -an + -ism.
Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are anti- + dis- + establish + -ment + -ary + -an + -ism.
Each morpheme explained
| Morpheme | Type | Free / bound | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| anti- | derivational prefix | bound | against, opposite |
| dis- | derivational prefix | bound | not, apart, away; reverse the action |
| establish | free root | free | set up or found |
| -ment | derivational suffix | bound | action, result or means of |
| -ary (written ari) | derivational suffix | bound | person, thing or place connected with; relating to |
| -an | derivational suffix | bound | a person from, or belonging to; relating to |
| -ism | derivational suffix | bound | belief, practice or condition |
How the word is built
establish → disestablish → disestablishment → disestablishmentarian → disestablishmentarianism → antidisestablishmentarianism
Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “establish” is where the chain starts.
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Segmentation derived from MorphyNet (Batsuren, Bella & Giunchiglia, 2021; CC BY-SA 3.0, built from Wiktionary), with hand-written affix glosses and root meanings from WordNet. Reviewed for classroom use; tell us if you spot an error.