1.3.1
Vowel Suffixes
Test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.
Suffixes Beginning with Vowels
Some common suffixes begin with vowels. We will look at how we add these suffixes to words later. But for now, let's look at some common suffixes.

-ing
- Floating.
- Crying.
- Swimming.

-ed
- Jumped.
- Leaned.
- Walked.

-est
- Fastest.
- Strongest.
- Weakest

-er
- Swimmer.
- Teacher.
- Walker.
Adding Suffixes Beginning with Vowels
We can add suffixes beginning with vowels to words to change their meanings. Let's look at some examples...

Garden
- Garden → gardener (someone who works in gardens).
- Garden → gardening (the activity of working in a garden).
- Garden → gardened (the past tense of 'garden').

Limit
- Limit → limiting (stopping something from having a lot of choice).
- Limit → limited (the past tense of 'limit').
Doubling the Final Consonant
When a word ends in a short vowel sound and a consonant, you need to double the final consonant before adding a suffix that starts with a vowel. That might sound confusing, so let's walk through some examples...

Hop
- Hop → hopping.
- Hop → hopped.

Forget and forgot
- Forget → forgetting.
- Forgot → forgotten.

Shop
- Shop → shopping.
- Shop → shopped.

Chat
- Chat → chatting.
- Chat → chatted.

Begin
- Begin → beginner.
- Begin → beginning.
1Reading
1.1Root Words
1.2Prefixes
1.3Suffixes
2Writing
2.1Composition
2.2Conjunctions
2.3Present Perfect Tense
2.5Fronted Adverbials
2.7Homophones
2.8Spelling Rules
2.9Using Apostrophes
2.10Using a Dictionary
Jump to other topics
1Reading
1.1Root Words
1.2Prefixes
1.3Suffixes
2Writing
2.1Composition
2.2Conjunctions
2.3Present Perfect Tense
2.5Fronted Adverbials
2.7Homophones
2.8Spelling Rules
2.9Using Apostrophes
2.10Using a Dictionary
Practice questions on Vowel Suffixes
Can you answer these? Test yourself with free interactive practice on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.
- 1Common suffixes that start with vowels:Fill in the list
- 2What are common suffixes that begin with vowels?True / false
- 3
- 4What is NOT a common suffix beginning with a vowel?Multiple choice
- 5Which word contains a common suffix beginning with a vowel?Multiple choice
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