affixes

In the 1530s, English scribes started using a word that had already taken a long detour through Latin and French, like a package readdressed at every stop. At the bottom of the trail is Latin figere, ‘to fasten,’ the same family that helps explain fix and even fixation; add ad- and you get affigere, ‘pin to.’ Medieval Latin then pumped out affixare, and French scribes turned it into afichier, which is why early English first wrote affitch before settling on affix. So the little grammar bits in prefix and suffix are cousins of the everyday idea of something being nailed on — language, in other words, is full of tiny linguistic thumbtacks.