-illus

illus. Latin Etymology la -lus<id:diminutive> From the diminutive suffix la -lus by la 1 of nouns such as la sigillum and la pōcillum (diminutives of la signum and la pōculum). In words like these, -ill- was the regular phonetic outcome of earlier [n̩l] and [l̩l] (with syllabic [n̩] and [l̩]), which arose from adding the suffix la -lus to stems that originally ended in a consonant + /n/ or /l/."Latin Diminutives in -Ello/A- and -Illo/A-: A Study in Diminutive Formation." George Kleppinger Strodach. Language, Vol. 9, No. 1, Language Dissertation No. 14 (Mar., 1933), pp. 7-98. Linguistic Society of America, http://www.jstor.org/stable/522000 After being reinterpreted as a suffix of its own, the ending -illus was attached freely to nouns of any form. Compare la -ellus. Pronunciation Suffix la suffix noun-forming suffixes Used to form diminutives of nouns. la furca fork -illus furcilla very small fork f f la haedus goat kid -illus haedillus kidling, young kid m m la pūnctum point, spot -illus pūnctillum very small dot n n Usage notes One of various Latin suffixes that could be attached to a noun to derive a diminutive. As a rule, the gender of a diminutive matches the gender of the base noun, and the form of the suffix changes accordingly: la -illus m, la -illa f, la -illum n. Declension -illus First declension for feminine nouns, second declension for masculine or neuter nouns. Derived terms la Descendants scn -iḍḍu -illu References la diminutive suffixes