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Things to do with FINDWORD 1: Compare words ending in -ful with those ending in -less. If necessary click Clear to start a new search. Enter *ful in the spelling box. Click Look Up. Enter *less in the spelling box. Click Look Up again. Words are added to the list in alphabetical order, so you will have this list: ageless aimless airless armful artful artless awful backless baleful baneful baseless bashful beardless beautiful bellyful blameless bless blissful bloodless boastful boneless bootless bottomless boundless bountiful boxful brainless breathless brimful bucketful careful careless causeless ceaseless changeful changeless characterless cheerful cheerless childless classless cloudless colourful colourless comfortless countless cupful dateless dauntless deathless deceitful defenceless delightful despiteful dessertspoonful direful disdainful disgraceful dishful disrespectful distasteful distressful distrustful doleful doubtful doubtless dreadful dreamless dutiful earful effortless emotionless endless eventful expressionless eyeful eyeless faceless faithful faithless fanciful fateful fatherless fathomless fatless faultless fearful fearless featureless feckless fitful flavourless flawless flightless flowerless foodless forceful forgetful formless fretful friendless frightful fruitful fruitless futureless gainful glassful gleeful goalless godless gormless graceful graceless grateful groundless guileful guileless guiltless gutless hairless handful hapless harmful harmless hateful hatful hatless headless healthful heartless heedful heedless helpful helpless homeless hopeful hopeless hornless houseful humourless hurtful ireful jarful joyful joyless jugful keyless landless lawful lawless leaderless leafless legless less lidless lifeless limbless limitless listless lordless loveless luckless lustful manful masterful masterless matchless meaningful meaningless measureless meatless merciful merciless mindful mindless mirthful mirthless mistrustful moneyless moonless motherless motionless motiveless mournful mouthful nameless needful needless neglectful nerveless nevertheless newsless noiseless numberless odourless offenceless overcareful ownerless pailful painful painless paperless passionless pathless peaceful peerless penniless pipeful pitiful pitiless planless plateful playful plentiful pocketful pointless powerful powerless priceless profitless purposeful purposeless pushful quenchless reasonless reckless regardful regardless regretful relentless remorseful remorseless reposeful reproachful resentful resistless resourceful resourceless respectful restful restless revengeful riderless rightful roadless roofless roomful rootless rudderless rueful rustless ruthless sapless scentless scoopful scornful seamless seedless senseless sexless shameful shameless shapeless shiftless shovelful sightless sinful sinless skilful sleepless sleeveless slothful smokeless sorrowful soulful soulless soundless spadeful speckless speechless spineless spiritless spiteful spoonful spotless springless stainless starless stateless stingless stoneless successful sunless supperless symptomless tablespoonful tactful tactless tailless taintless tasteful tasteless tearful tearless teaspoonful thankful thankless thimbleful thoughtful thoughtless thriftless timeless tireless toneless toothless topless trackless treeless trustful truthful tubeless tubful tuneful uneventful unfaithful unfruitful ungraceful ungrateful unhelpful unlawful unless unmerciful unmindful unsuccessful untruthful useful useless valueless vengeful viewless voiceless voteless wakeful wasteful watchful waterless weaponless weightless wilful willful windless wingless wireless wishful wistful witless woeful wonderful wordless worshipful worthless wrathful wrongful youthful zestful There are several mis-hits, words in which -less is not a suffix, namely bless, less and unless. You can delete these if you wish by clicking on each and pressing the Delete or Backspace key. It is interesting to look at the words that make up a pair, starting with artful/artless and ending with useful/useless. Some of these are obvious polar opposites, such as careful/careless or tactful/tactless. Others seem related in meaning but not quite so obviously contrasting, such as helpful/helpless. You might notice that there is an opposite of helpful in the list made with the un- prefix. There are other sets of *ful, *less and un*ful words, made with the roots faith, fruit, grace and law. One could try and work out, perhaps with a conordancer, what the difference of meaning and use is between unfaithful and faithless, unhelpful and helpless, and unlawful and lawless. Other pairs seem to have little to do with each other, such as hatful/hatless. This last might lead to a search for words where the *ful suffix has been applied to a container, such as boxful, scoopful and tablespoonful. Next one could make a classification of the roots to which the suffixes have been added, finding out which are count nouns and which mass nouns. One might look for the roots which are not free morphemes in modern English, as in feckless, grateful and gormless. Obviously many of the "missing" derivations could be found in a larger dictionary or attested in a corpus, or could be coined by a writer for comic effect. A class could be asked to have a go at making their own words, such as spotful or youthless, deciding how they might be used, and looking for them in a big dictionary or an internet search. 2: Verbs ending with -ise or ize The policy of the Advanced Learners Dictionary is to prefer -ize where alternatives are possible. It is worth looking at the list to see which words are not given the spelling with <z>. Click Clear if necessary to start a new search. Pull down the grammar menu and select Verb. Enter *aIz in the pronunciation box and *e in the spelling box (this is to eliminate all the third-person endings in -ies, such as defies.) Then click Look Up. This yields a list of 251 words. Two words are given in two spellings, analyse/analyze and paralyse/paralyze. There are 28 words that end in -ise. In many cases this is because -ise is not a derivational suffix but is part of another morpheme, such as arise and rise, circumcise and excise, despise, surmise, surprise, and the -vise group of advise, devise, revise and televise. The only two words that have the -ise spelling as a suffix are advertise and enfranchise. An interesting activity would be to take some of the commoner -ize words, such as criticize and apologize, and see how often they occur with that spelling and with the -ise spelling in a corpus. A Google search of criticise, for instance, turned up 176,000 pages with criticise and 602,000 with criticize. 3: Abstract noun-forming suffixes It is interesting to look for the kinds of roots which are turned into abstract nouns by adding suffixes such as -hood, -ness, -ship or -tude. Click Clear if necessary to start a new search. Now enter *hood in the spelling box and click Look Up. This gives a list of 23 items. Nearly all the roots are nouns denoting persons, such as baby, boy , mother, or priest. There are only five words not so derived, namely the word hood itself, and falsehood, hardihood, likelihood and livelihood. Now click Clear and enter *ness in the Spelling box. This will give you a list of 753 items, all of which, apart from a few place names such as Barrow-inFurness and Skegness, are derived from adjectives. The number and range of the adjective roots suggest that this is very much a live morpheme, and almost any adjective could have a -ness noun derived from it, though this could be tested by looking for other noun plus -ness compounds. Click Clear and enter *ship in the Spelling box. If you also select nouns in the grammar menu, you will see a list of 76 words. Otherwise there will be 77 words including the verb transship. Some use -ship in the sense of transport, namely airship, battleship, flagship, sailing-ship, ship, spaceship, steamship, training-ship, warship and weather-ship. Then there is a set of words denoting skill, such as craftsmanship, horsemanship, leadership, marksmanship, musicianship, oarsmanship, salesmanship, showmanship, sportsmanship and with irony gamesmanship and one-upmanship. Almost all the remainder denote the responsibility of a role or appointment, such as apprenticeship, companionship, fellowship or membership. There are two oddities, the word hardship, in which the root appears to be an adjective rather than a noun, and the word worship, which turns out to be derived from the word worth and the suffix -ship and can be sued as noun or verb. The -tude suffix yields only 40 words. What is obvious is that the roots in many cases are not free morphemes in modern English, as in altitude, beatitude, gratitude, platitude or turpitude. Where the root is recognisable, it matches an adjective, as in amplitude, certitude or exactitude. 4: Plurals of words ending in -f Some English words ending in -f have plurals in -ves, such as hoof, wolf and half. Others make a plural by adding -s, such as roof and chief. The word knife has the plural knives. The best way to see how many words behave each way is to look for plurals. Choose Noun and Count-noun from the drop-down menus, and *fs in the Spelling box. This will give a list 0f about 90 words including many ending in ffs. Delete those, leaving the following 35 words: aperitifs briefs califs chefs chiefs clefs coifs coral-reefs dwarfs fiefs galley-proofs goofs gulfs handkerchiefs hoofs kerchiefs massifs motifs neckerchiefs oafs pocket-handkerchiefs poofs poufs reefs roofs scarfs scoffs serfs spoofs sunroofs sunshine-roofs waifs waterproofs wharfs woofs Now click Clear, select Nouns and Count-nouns again and enter *ves in the spelling box. This yields about 90 more words. When you eliminate the words which are the plurals of words ending in -ve, such as missive and curve, you will be left with this list. beeves behalves calves cloverleaves elves fig-leaves flyleaves halves helves hooves loaves maple-leaves oaves rose-leaves scarves selves sheaves shelves sneak-thieves tea-leaves thieves turves werewolves wharves wolves In three cases the two list contain alternative plurals of the same word (hoof, scarf and wharf). You could ask students to check other dictionaries to see which form is preferred, and check a concordance to see which is commoner.
