-ish

Pronuctuation

• UK IPA: /ɪʃ/

Etymology

From Middle English -ish, -isch, from Old English -isc ("-ish", suffix.), from Proto-Germanic *-iskaz ("-ish"), from Proto-Indo-European *-iskos. Cognate with Dutch and German -isch, Norwegian and Danish -isk, Lithuanian -iškas, and Ancient Greek diminutive suffix -ισκος.

Full definition of -ish

Suffix

1. (appended to many kinds of words) Typical or similar to.Her face had a girlish charm.
• 1859, Harriet Parr (as Holme Lee), Against Wind and Tide, volume 1, p. 273:...; for she had recently developed a magpie-ish tendency to appropriate and conceal trifling matters; ...
2. (appended to adjectives) Somewhat.Her face had a greenish tinge.
3. (appended to numbers, especially times and ages) About, approximately.We arrived at tennish or We arrived tennish. (Sometime around ten.)I couldn't tell his precise age, but he was fiftyish.
4. (appended to roots denoting names of nations or regions) Of a nationality, place, language or similar association with something.British, Cornish, Danish, English, Finnish, Irish, Kentish, Scottish, Spanish, Swedish etc.