A primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical.

the basic part of a word that usually carries the main component of meaning and that cannot be further analyzed without loss of identity. in a complex word, the meaningful base form after all affixes are removed. Note: A root may be independent, or free, as read in unreadable, or may be dependent, or bound, as -liter- (from the Greek for letter) in illiterate. Cp. bound morpheme; free morpheme.

Reference to a basic item in linguistics. Example: the stem from which a word is derived, such as the cluster of three conso­nants in Semit­ic words, e.g. n z l for nazala (Arabic 'descend') or y r d for yarad ('descend' in Hebrew) and all their derivatives.

That part of a word left when all affixes are removed; the morpheme that carries the minimal unit of meaning in a word and can be common to several different words. The three consonants in Hebrew that ordinarily compose the basic uninflected spelling of a word are called the root letters. Occasionally a Hebrew word may have two or four root letters. Gk: the root dik- is common to dikaio", "righteous," dikh, "justice," and dikaiow, "to acquit." Also called "Lexeme."

that part of a word that is left when all affixes have been removed ( industry is the root of preindustrial).

(linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed; "thematic vowels are part of the stem"

a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes

a morpheme which is used as the stem of a lexeme

a primitive element of the language incapable of any grammatical analysis, and expressing an abstract idea

a substantive morpheme, an actual thing or action or idea

a word or part of a word to which a prefix or suffix can be added to form other words and change the meaning

A word or word element to which prefixes and suffixes may be added to make other words. For example, to the root graph, the prefix di- and the suffix –ic can be added to create the word digraphic. See Prefix, Suffix

The core of the word, the foundation that all other parts are added to.

The simplest form of a word (i.e. dictionary form) is the root.

see stem.

base of a word

Three main types (1) fibrous--consists of many fine-branched roots; (2.) tuberous--few to several roots, all attached at the base of the stem and swollen, at least at the base, with stored food; (3.) tap--one main vertical root swollen with stored food.

The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word minus its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place.