Prefixes: “abdicate” to “avert”a-, ab-, abs- (Latin: from, away, away from; used as a prefix).This prefix is normally used with elements of Latin and French origins (abs- usually joins elements beginning with c, q or t). The form ab- is regularly used before all vowels and h; and it becomes a- before the consonants m, p, and v. The prefix apo- has similar meanings. abdicate (ab- + dicare, "proclaim" + -ate, verb ending):
To renounce, reject, resign.
abduct:
To lead away (by force); to kidnap.
aberration:
A wandering or straying away; a departure or deviation from what is considered normal or from the socially recognized path.
abhor (ab- + horrere, to bristle with fear, shudder):
To shrink away from in fear, disgust, or hatred; to detest, to hate.
abject, (ab- + jacere, to cast, throw, literally, throwing away):
1. Of the most contemptible kind, despicable; such as, "An abject coward".
2. Of the most miserable kind, wretched; such as, "They lived in abject poverty". ablactation:
The weaning of a child from nursing or the cessation of milk secretion.
abluent:
A cleansing agent.
abmortal:
Situated or directed away from a dead or injured part; applied especially to electric currents set up in injured tissue.
abominable:
A bad omen; nasty and disgusting; vile; loathsome.
aboral:
Opposite to, away from, or remote from the mouth.
aborigine (ab- + origine, original; Aborigines, said to be a tribe that originally inhabited Latium):
Native; any of the first or earliest known inhabitants of a region.
abrasion:
1. A scraping or rubbing off, as of skin.
2. A wearing away by rubbing or scraping, as of rock by wind, water, etc. abridge:
1. "To make shorter, condense", appeared about 1384 in the Wycliffe Bible.
2. To reduce or shorten; condense. Abridgment, or abridgement, appeared c. 1494, borrowed from Old French abregement, from abreger. abrogate:
To annul or repeal, especially a law.
abrupt, (ab- + rumpere, to break, to break off):
Ending suddenly; jerky and disconnected; curt and rough in speech.
abscond:
To go away hastily and secretly; run away and hide, especially in order to escape from the law.
absorb:
To drink in, to soak up; engross; assimilate; to take in and not give out.
abstain:
To hold oneself back; voluntarily do without; refrain (from); abstention.
abstemious (abs- + temetum, intoxicating drink, mead, wine):
Moderation in eating and drinking, sober, temperate; not self-indulgent.
abstention:
Abstaining; voluntarily doing without something.
abstract:
Not concrete; not easy to understand; a brief statement of the essential thoughts of a book, article, speech, court record, etc.; a summary.
abstruse:
Concealed or hidden; hard to understand, deep; obscure.
absurd (ab- + surdus, dull, deaf, insensitive, inaudible, out of tune, senseless):
So clearly untrue or unreasonable as to be laughable or ridiculous
abuse:
To use wrongly or improperly; to misuse.
avert:
1. To turn away.
2. To ward off or prevent. This list is a very small sample of the a-, ab-, abs- prefixes that are available in dictionaries and they are meant to provide as examples; not as all of those that exist.
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