Infixes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of affix that is inserted within a word rather than added at the beginning or end
2. A morpheme that is inserted into the middle of a root word to create a new word or modify its meaning
3. A linguistic element employed to alter the structure of a word from the inside, distinct from prefixes and suffixes

Etymology: "Infixes" is the plural of "infix," and the singular is the older word, which English built backward from a verb. Middle English had the past participle "infixed," meaning "stuck in," and from that participle the noun "infix" was back-formed, meaning a piece fastened into the middle of something. The verb underneath it came from Latin "infigere," "to fasten in," a compound of "in-" ("in") and "figere" ("to fix, fasten"), the same root that gives English "fix" and "figure." The notable twist is that English got the word by reversing the usual direction. A back-formation is created by reading an ending as if it were a suffix and dropping it, so "infixed" became the source of "infix" rather than the other way round. The Latin "infigere" itself is a plain compound of prepositional prefix and verb, so the history here is one of ordinary Latin building blocks followed by an English reshaping.