infix

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 5, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>infix</strong> &#149; \IN-fiks\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><strong>:</strong> a derivational or inflectional <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affix#h2">affix</a> appearing in the body of a word (such as <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Sanskrit">Sanskrit</a> <em>-n-</em> in <em>vindami</em> "I know" as contrasted with <em>vid</em> "to know")</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>The Philippine language of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Tagalog">Tagalog</a> adds <em>infixes</em> such as <em>-um-</em> and <em>-su-</em> to verbs to convey different tenses and voices.</p> <p>"As Mark Peters writes, [<em>The Simpsons</em> character Ned Flanders] is 'hyper-holy,' and his <em>infixes</em> sanctify a typically profane process. He is also gratingly cheerful … and <em>diddly</em> perfectly conveys his sunny attitude: <em>murder</em> and <em>dilemma</em> sound a lot less forbidding when infixed as <em>murdiddlyurder</em> and <em>dididdlyemma</em>…." —Michael Adams, <em>Slang: The People’s Poetry</em>, 2009</p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>Like prefixes and suffixes, infixes are part of the general class of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affix#h2">affixes</a> ("sounds or letters attached to or inserted within a word to produce a derivative word or an inflectional form"). Infixes are relatively rare in English, but you can find them in the plural forms of some words. For example, <em>cupful</em>, <em>spoonful</em>, and <em>passerby</em> can be pluralized as <em>cupsful</em>, <em>spoonsful</em>, and <em>passersby</em>, using "s" as an infix. Another example is the insertion of an (often offensive) <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intensifier">intensifier</a> into a