This is a list of common word-formation processes in English:

Now, let us discuss them one by one.

Borrowing or loan word refers to the process where a foreign word is used in the language without being translated. The English language has adopted a large number of words from other languages. Remember that the word does not lose its meaning in the target language.

There are two different types of loan words. Let's take a look at them:

Loan-translation, also known as calque, is a translation method in which a word or phrase is translated literally, word-for-word, into another language. It's important to note that calques are usually semantic or syntactic translations, meaning that they retain the meaning or structure of the word in the original language, rather than being phonetically matched.

There are five types of calque which have been listed below with examples:

When two separate words are combined together to form a single new word, compounding happens. This happens in English and German more than in French and Spanish.

There are three types of compound words:

Blending is when a word is formed by mixing two other words together.

There are two different types of blending:

Clipping or shortening involves cutting down some parts of a word and forming a shorter word that is a synonym for the original word. Clipping is different from abbreviation as it is the shortened form of written words. Here are some examples:

Some linguists believe that clippings originated as slang or jargon among students and teachers in schools, officers and soldiers in the army, or doctors and nurses in the medical profession. Here are some examples:

Depending on the part of the word that is reduced, there are four types of clipping:

It is a type of clipping mostly used in British and Australian English when a longer word is reduced to one syllable and -'ie' or –'y' is added to the end. It is mainly used in 'child-talk', 'nicknames', and everyday life conversations.

This word-formation process happens when a word (usually a noun) is reduced to another part of speech (normally a verb). This word-formation process originated in Latin nouns ending with '-ion' that entered the English language. Take a look at some examples:

If there is a noun ending in -er (or something close in sound), then we can create a verb:

This word-formation process is also called zero derivation and happens when we create a new word with another part of speech without changing its form. For example:

As you can see below, there are three types of conversion:

Coinage is a type of word-formation process in which a new word is created, either by inventing a completely new word or by adapting an existing word in a new way. This can happen because of advances in technology, movies, literature, music, and popular culture. For instance:

This is a type of coinage where the word is derived from the names of people or places. Eponyms are usually written in lowercase letters, but when they are used as proper nouns, they must be written in uppercase letters. Like:

Affixation involves the use of prefixes and suffixes which are small words put before or after some words to change their meaning and part of speech. Here are some examples:

Infixes are affixes inserted into the word stems. There are a few infixes in English and they are normally used in informal speech or technical texts. Here are some examples:

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase that is used to represent the full form of the word or phrase. Here are some examples:

There are five types of abbreviations. Let's take a look at each type:

Analogy happens when a new word is created based on an existing word that has a similar form or meaning. This process involves extending the meaning or form of an existing word to create a new word that is similar in structure or meaning. Take a look at this example for a better understanding: