Nuts and Bolts: the privative.

 The privative? Oh, that's something you know already.

It's just some letters added to a word to reverse its meaning.

In English, the extra bit usually goes on the front of a word, and the commonest forms are in- (as in the word inoperable), a- (as in the word asocial) or un- (unsayable).

On the other hand -less also does the same thing, but goes on the rear end of a word (hopeless).

A privative a- usually has an n added before a vowel, as in analphabetic (which means not in alphabetic order). This is partly to make the word easier to say, and partly because in-, un- and a- all originally, long ago when all the Indo-European languages were the same, were the same sound, a kind of vowelish n sound, as you still hear at the end of the word rotten.

Sometimes a privative doesn't work quite as expected. The word invaluable means very valuable, for instance, and not having-no-value. This is because the word valuable has changed from its old meaning of able-to-be-given-a-value to a new meaning of priceless (which is a similarly awkward privative). So invaluable did start off meaning the opposite of valuable, but now we're in the silly situation of valuable and invaluable meaning almost the same thing.

Sometimes what looks like a privative is something quite different. Someone who is infatuated, for example, is more likely to be fatuous than the opposite.

But, as I've already said, you knew all this. 

Still, it's fun, isn't it.

Word To Use Today: a privative. This'll be easy now you're no longer uninformed.