Representative image of a dictionary.
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This is the season for dictionaries to proclaim new words. Merriam-Webster has just declared ‘Slop’ as the new word for 2025, while Collins Dictionary has declared ‘vibe coding’ as the new word for the year. Well, Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year was ‘parasocial’, meaning a one-sided psychological bond where a person feels they know and have a relationship with a media figure – a celebrity or fictional character – who is unaware of their existence, creating an intimacy through media like television, social media, etc.
I was thinking about how prefixes can change the meaning of a word. Take ‘para’, for example. We have just seen what ‘para’ does to social – reducing one associated with society to one forming a one-sided bond. A person who is paranoid is entirely different from a ‘paragon’ of virtue. One suffers from delusions of persecution or grandeur, while the other describes someone or something that is a perfect embodiment of a concept or behaviour. A paraplegic person is one for whom we might want to help if we could, while a parasite is a person we would rather shun.
In the English language, a paradox is different from a paradoxical statement. One means a statement that contradicts itself, while the other means that something is seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true. When you write a paragraph on a subject, it is usually one of several subdivisions of a longer text, but when you paraphrase something, you put into your own words something you have just read or heard, in a shorter version. A parody is a humorous imitation of more serious writing or music, while a parable is a short story that usually illustrates a moral or lesson.
‘Paradigm shift’ is a commonly used phrase while talking about new shifts in policy issues both in the government and in the corporate sector. ‘Parochial’ would refer to a narrow-minded outlook on issues and situations.
When it comes to professions, a paramedic is a person trained to give emergency medical treatment, while a paralegal is a person with specialised training to assist lawyers, and paramilitary is an unofficial military unit.
‘Parasailing’ refers to a sport in which a person is harnessed to a parachute-like device being pulled by a vehicle. ‘Paragliding’ is another sport where a person is harnessed to a manoeuvrable parachute-like wing. While both these are for the sporty kind, a paratrooper is someone who specialises in parachuting from an aircraft, sometimes behind enemy lines, often compromising his life.
The world of the ‘para’ could go on and on, as would other prefixes like ‘anti’ and ‘un’. So, in the future, never ever cock a snook at a prefix because a wrong prefix could change what you set out to say!
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)