Infixations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of inserting elements or affixes within a base structure or word to create new meanings
2. Instances of such insertions that alter the form or function of the original term
3. A linguistic process that emphasizes the modification of established terms through intercalation of additional segments

Etymology: "Infixations" is the plural of "infixation", a noun formed from "infix" plus the suffix "-ation". The base "infix" comes from Latin "infixus", the past participle of "infigere", meaning "to fasten into" or "to thrust in", built from "in-" ("into") and "figere" ("to fasten"). The suffix "-ation" marks an action or process, so the noun names the act of inserting something into the middle of a word. Linguists use the term for a specific kind of affix: a unit placed inside a base word rather than before or after it. English has few true infixes, so the term usually describes examples from other languages, such as the Tagalog "-um-" that changes "sulat" ("write") into "sumulat" ("wrote"), or informal English forms like "abso-bloody-lutely". The plural "infixations" simply counts separate instances of this process.