Morphemes in “golden”

“golden” has 2 morphemes: gold + -en.

gold root
+
en suffix

Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are gold + -en.

Each morpheme explained

MorphemeTypeFree / boundMeaning
gold free root free coins made of gold
-en derivational suffix bound made of (wooden)

How the word is built

gold golden

Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “gold” is where the chain starts.

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Related words

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 "golden"?
"golden" has two morphemes: gold + -en.
How do you break "golden" into morphemes?
gold + -en. The root is "gold"; -en is a derivational suffix.
What is the root word of "golden"?
The root of "golden" is "gold", built up as gold → golden.
Is this morphology tool free?
Yes. The Fixie morphological analyzer is free with no signup and runs in your browser.