Morphemes in “misunderstanding”
“misunderstanding” has 3 morphemes: mis- + understand + -ing.
Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are mis- + understand + -ing.
Each morpheme explained
| Morpheme | Type | Free / bound | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| mis- | derivational prefix | bound | wrongly, badly |
| understand | free root | free | know and comprehend the nature or meaning of |
| -ing | inflectional suffix | bound | ongoing action (present participle) / gerund |
How the word is built
understand → misunderstand → misunderstanding
Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “understand” is where the chain starts.
Morphemes are not syllables
Morphemes are units of meaning; syllables are units of sound. The boundaries often fall in different places, which is why “misunderstanding” splits one way for a morphology exercise and another for a syllable count.
Break any word into morphemes
Prefixes, roots and suffixes with glosses, free and in your browser.
Open the morphological analyzer →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.