Morphemes in “cats”
“cats” has 2 morphemes: cat + -s.
cat
root
+
s
suffix
Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are cat + -s.
Each morpheme explained
| Morpheme | Type | Free / bound | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| cat | free root | free | feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar: domestic cats; wildcats |
| -s | inflectional suffix | bound | plural (nouns) / third-person singular present (verbs) |
Break any word into morphemes
Prefixes, roots and suffixes with glosses, free and in your browser.
Open the morphological analyzer →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.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many morphemes are in "cats"?
"cats" has two morphemes: cat + -s.
How do you break "cats" into morphemes?
cat + -s. -s is a inflectional suffix.
Is this morphology tool free?
Yes. The Fixie morphological analyzer is free with no signup and runs in your browser.