Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- Without; not: amoral.
- On; in: abed.
- In the act of: aborning.
- In the direction of: astern.
- In a specified state or condition: abuzz.
Wiktionary
- no longer productive forming verbs with the sense away, up, on, out
- no longer productive forming verbs with the sense of intensified action.
- Not, without, opposite of.
GNU Webster's 1913
- A, as a prefix to English words, is derived from various sources. (1) It frequently signifies
on orin (froman ,a forms of AS.on ), denoting a state, as ina foot, on foot,a bed,a miss,a sleep, aground,a loft,a way (AS.onweg ), and analogically,a blaze,a tremble, etc. (2) AS.of off, from, as ina down (AS.ofdūne off thedun or hill). (3) AS. ā- (Goth.us- ,ur- , Ger.er- ), usually giving an intensive force, and sometimes the sense ofaway ,on ,back , as ina rise,a bide,a go. (4) Old Englishy- ori- (corrupted from the AS. inseparable particlege- , cognate with OHG.ga- ,gi- , Goth.ga- ), which, as a prefix, made no essential addition to the meaning, as in aware. (5) Frenchà (L.ad to), as ina base,a chieve. (6) L.a ,ab ,abs , from, as ina vert. (7) Greek insep. prefix α without, or privative, not, as ina byss,a theist; akin to E.un- .
Etymologies
- From Latin ab ("from, away") (Wiktionary)
- Greek; see ne in Indo-European roots.Middle English, from Old English, from an, on; see on. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“At a hearing on the budget this week, led by by the scandal-plagued Chairman of the City Council, Kwame Brown, best known for demanding a "fully loaded" $1900- a- month leased SUV from city officials, activists challenged his opposition to raising taxes, the deadlocked council's complacency, and the council leadership that has ignored public opinion favoring preserving social programs.”
“So get your sweet a-, um, self over here so the rest of us can chow down.”
“Another 1,500 in-the-money calls were purchased up at the Jan. 2012 $13 strike at an average premium of $1.32 a-pop.”
“Never write a check with your mouth you can't cash with your a-$$!”
“I'd rather have Oh bomb a- nation for four more years.”
“Traders sold around 5,000 puts at the Jan. 2013 $17.5 strike at an average premium of $1.42 each, purchased around the same number of calls up at the Jan. 2013 $25 strike for an average premium of $3.67 per contract, and sold some 5,000 calls at the Jan. 2013 $30 strike at an average premium of $1.97 a-pop.”
“It looks like the investor sold 2,000 puts at the Dec. $40 strike for a premium of $1.45 each, purchased 2,000 calls up at the Dec. $45 strike for a premium of $2.28 per contract, and sold 4,000 puts at the Dec. $50 strike at a premium of $0.75 a-pop.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘a-’.
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Prefixes
a-, ab, abs, ambi, ante, anti, aqu, aqua, arch, astro, auto, bene and 71 more...
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Morphemes
morphemes greek and latin prefixes, suffixes and roots.
http://www.learnthat.org/vocabulary/pages/view/roots.htmlkinein, matic, thermo, a-, ob-, pro-, inflection, semantics, syntax, derivational suff..., inflectional suff..., morpheme and 87 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for a-.
jwjarvis to i.e. in the direction of Oct 15, 2010