Back-formation
We form words with back-formation when we remove part of a word, usually something which we think is a suffix (or occasionally a prefix). We do this commonly when we form verbs from nouns. …
prefix
verb[ T ]
uk /ˈpriː.fɪks//ˈpref.ɪks/
language specialized
to add a letter or group of letters to the beginning of a word to make a new word:
prefixed withMany German participles are prefixed with ge- .
prefixed toThis word is usually prefixed to an adjective.
UK
to add a number to the beginning of a phone number, especially when calling someone outside your town or country:
prefix sth with sthTo phone countries outside the US, you prefix the country code with 011.
prefix sth to sthThe subscriber can dial trunk calls direct by prefixing the STD number to the number they wish to call.
prefixed byNumbers prefixed by 020 are all toll-free.
computing specialized
to add a group numbers, letters, or symbols to the beginning of an internet address or piece of computer code:
prefixed withWherever such XML elements appear, they are prefixed with the letters DAV.
Usually drivers are prefixed with V (for version).
(of a word) to come before or at the beginning of a name:
"Wheal", the Cornish word for workplace, prefixes the names of all the county's mines.
The fact that a brand name now prefixes the location shows that it is owned by a very specific corporate body.
to say a word before the name of someone or something, for example to describe them or it:
prefixed byAt that time, artists were often prefixed by the word "struggling".
The town is usually prefixed by the word "sleepy".
to add something before another thing:
prefix sth to sthI prefixed my preface to the translation.
prefixed byEach document is prefixed by a helpful few lines of context.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistics: morphology & parts of words
-athon
affix
affixation
agglutinate
agglutinative
analytic
interfix
ion
ism
libfix
monomorphemic
monosyllabic
morpheme
polysyllabic
suffix
syllabification
syllabify
synthetic
that'd
that'll

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Communications - by telephone
Preceding and introducing
Beginnings and starts

prefix | American Dictionary

prefix
noun[ C ]
us/ˈpri·fɪks/
grammar
a letter or group of letters added to the beginning of a word to change the meaning or make a new word:
In the words "unknown" and "unusual," "un-" is a prefix meaning "not."

Examples of prefix

prefix
The efficiency of the first type of code, based on encoding by prefix, can easily be measured.
We also show that without the atomic prefixing only two-way synchronisation is possible, and is between exactly one output and one input operation.
Aside from being prefixed by a possessive pronoun, its members undergo no changes when possessed.
This generalisation extends to the treatment of prefixes and prepositions.
That individual affixes must somehow be identified as prefixes or suffixes on a language-particular basis comes as no surprise.
There is still, however, the question of entry efficiency in this general method, and the prefix is used as the substring in most such proposals.
The parsers for infix and prefix operators embody the grammar transformations required to remove left-recursion.
Moreover, items with unproductive prefixes gravitate more strongly towards left-branching than items with productive prefixes.
Each method provides a toolkit for constructing parsers for expressions involving at least infix binary and prefix unary operators.
These suffixes are also used alone and with prefixes in other morphological constructions.
A reasonable interpretation of an indicative conditional prefixed by a ' % ' is as stating an entailment.
This argument concerns derivational morphology, which is sometimes realised as a prefix or suffix.
Note, though, that these verbs can take the nasal prefix when the applicative/causative suffix -ke is present.
There are almost three times as many words with productive prefixes as with unproductive ones.
A comparison of the frequency of the words with productive and those with unproductive prefixes reveals a clear difference.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.