Morphemes in “preschooler”

“preschooler” has 3 morphemes: pre- + school + -er.

pre prefix
+
school root
+
er suffix

Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are pre- + school + -er.

Each morpheme explained

MorphemeTypeFree / boundMeaning
pre- derivational prefix bound before
school free root free an educational institution
-er inflectional suffix bound more (comparative)

How the word is built

school preschool preschooler

Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “school” 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 "preschooler"?
"preschooler" has three morphemes: pre- + school + -er.
How do you break "preschooler" into morphemes?
pre- + school + -er. The root is "school"; pre- is a derivational prefix, -er is a inflectional suffix.
What is the root word of "preschooler"?
The root of "preschooler" is "school", built up as school → preschool → preschooler.
Is this morphology tool free?
Yes. The Fixie morphological analyzer is free with no signup and runs in your browser.