In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. Prefixes are bound morphemes (they cannot occur as independent words).

While most languages employ both prefixes and suffixes, prefixes are crosslinguistically less common. Some languages employ mostly suffixes and almost no prefixes at all.

The use of prefixes has been found to correlate statistically with other linguistic features, such as a verb-object word order and the use of prepositions.

In the Indo-European languages, prefixes are mostly derivational morphemes (inflection is most often marked with suffixes).

See also

• Clitic
• Pre-nominal letters
• List of prefixes in the English language
• List of Latin words with English derivatives
• SI prefix
• Binary prefix
• Numerical prefix
• Unpaired word

prefix (taalkunde)