Back-formation

The term 'back-formation' was coined by Scottish lexicographer James Murray, the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1879 until 1915.

In etymology, back-formation refers to the process or result of creating a new word through the removal or substitution of actual or supposed affixes from a lexical item, thereby expanding the number of lexemes associated with the corresponding root word. The resulting word is called a back-formation, a term coined by James Murray in 1889. (The Oxford English Dictionary Online cites its first use of 'back-formation' from 1889 in the definition of 'to burgle,' derived from 'burglar.')

For instance, the noun 'resurrection' was borrowed from Latin, and the verb 'resurrect' was later back-formed from it by removing the -ion suffix. This segmentation of 'resurrection' into 'resurrect' + 'ion' was possible because English had examples of Latin words in the form of verb and verb+-ion pairs, such as 'opine'/'opinion.' These pairs became a pattern for many more such formations, where a verb derived from a Latin supine stem and a noun ending in -ion entered the language together, such as 'insert'/'insertion,' 'project'/'projection,' and so on.

Back-formation often involves a neologism, by removing actual or supposed affixes from another word. Simply put, a back-formation is a shortened word, such as 'edit,' created from a longer word like 'editor.' It can also refer to the process itself, termed back-derivation.

As Huddleston and Pullum have observed, "There is nothing in the forms themselves that enables one to distinguish between affixation and back-formation: it's a matter of the historical formation of words rather than their structure".

Examples and Observations:

singular noun 'pea' from the older English plural 'pease'

the verb 'burgle' from the older English noun 'burglar'

the verb 'diagnose' from the older English noun 'diagnosis'

"He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully changed the subject." (P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters, 1938)

Ben Zimmer discusses, "Stripping the 'in-' from 'inchoate' is known as back-formation, the same process that has given us words like 'peeve' (from 'peevish'), 'surveil' (from 'surveillance'), and 'enthuse' (from 'enthusiasm'). There’s a long linguistic tradition of removing parts of words that look like prefixes and suffixes to come up with 'roots' that weren’t there to begin with".

In many cases of back-formation, a presumed affix is removed which is in fact not truly an affix, as in the following words where the '-or,' '-ar,' and '-er' are not the agentive suffix, but part of the root: 'orator' - '-er' > 'orate,' 'lecher' + '-er' > 'lech,' 'peddler' + '-er' > 'peddle,' 'escalator' + '-er' > 'escalate,' 'editor' + '-er' > 'edit,' 'swindle' + '-er' > 'swindle,' 'sculptor' + '-er' > 'sculpt,' 'hawker' + '-er' > 'hawk.' These mistakes are called back-formations. Note that some of them are colloquial or marginal, while others are fully accepted.

Back-formation in Middle English was crucial to the rise and development of back-formation, allowing the derivation from verbs of a multitude of nouns, and vice versa, thanks to the weakening of the flexional endings during the early Middle English period.

Back-formation continues to contribute to the language. Television has given 'televise' on the model of 'revise'/'revision,' and 'donation' has given 'donate' on the model of 'relate'/'relation.' 'Babysitter' and 'stage manager' have given 'babysit' and 'stage manage' for obvious reasons. More remotely, there is 'lase' from 'laser' (the latter an acronym for 'lightwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation'), first recorded from 1966.

Filling a Void: Back-formations are more likely to occur with very strongly entrenched patterns and they have the effect of filling an apparent void. The process has given us common verbs such as 'afflict' (from 'affliction'), 'enthuse' (from 'enthusiasm'), 'laze' (from 'lazy'), 'liaise' (from 'liaison'), 'aggress' (from 'aggression'), 'televise' (from 'television'), 'housekeep' (from 'housekeeper'), 'jell' (from 'jelly'), and many more.

Back-formations are objectionable when they are merely needless variations of already existing verbs:

back-formed verb - ordinary verb

administrate - administer

cohabitate - cohabit

delimitate - delimit

interpretate - interpret

orientate - orient

registrate - register

remediate - remedy

revolute - revolt

solicitate - solicit

Many back-formations never gain real legitimacy (e.g., *elocute, *enthuse), some are aborted early in their existence (e.g., *ebullit, *evolute), and still others are of questionable vigour (e.g., 'aggress,' 'attrit,' 'effulge,' 'evanesce,' 'frivol').