1.3.3

Rules for Suffixes: '-ous'

Test yourself

Suffixes - 'ous'

You have already learnt that adding '-ous' to a noun turns the noun into an adjective. But sometimes you can't just add 'ous' and you need to drop or change a letter. Let's look at what you do if a word ends in 'e'...

Illustrative background for Words ending in 'e'Illustrative background for Words ending in 'e' ?? "content

Words ending in 'e'

  • If you want to add 'ous' to a noun ending in 'e', you need to drop the 'e' at the end of the word.
  • Let's walk through 2 examples...

Suffixes - 'ous'

You have already learnt that adding '-ous' to a noun turns it into an adjective. But sometimes, you can't just add 'ous' and you need to drop or change a letter. Let's look at what you do when the word ends in 'y'...

Illustrative background for Words ending in 'y'Illustrative background for Words ending in 'y' ?? "content

Words ending in 'y'

  • If you want to add 'ous' to a noun ending in 'y', you need to change the 'y' at the end of the word to an 'i'.
  • Let's walk through 2 examples...

Suffixes - 'ous'

You have already learnt that adding '-ous' to a noun turns the noun into an adjective. But sometimes you can't just add 'ous' and you need to drop or change a letter. Let's look at what you do when the word ends in 'our'...

Illustrative background for Words ending in 'our'Illustrative background for Words ending in 'our' ?? "content

Words ending in 'our'

  • If you want to add 'ous' to a noun ending in 'our', you need to drop the 'our' at the end of the word and add 'or' before adding 'ous'.
  • This sounds confusing. So let's walk through some examples...

Jump to other topics

1Reading

2Writing

2.1Composition

2.2Conjunctions

2.3Present Perfect Tense

2.4Nouns

2.5Fronted Adverbials

2.6Direct Speech

2.7Homophones

2.8Spelling Rules

2.9Using Apostrophes

2.10Using a Dictionary

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