noun
- Plural of desinence; the endings or terminations of words, especially inflectional suffixes in grammar.
Usage: linguistics; formal
Examples
- In Latin, desinences indicate case, number, and gender.
- The desinences of English verbs are relatively simple compared to Romance languages.
- Linguists study desinences to understand how languages mark grammatical relationships.
- The -ed desinence marks the past tense in regular English verbs.
- Different desinences in Spanish adjectives show agreement with nouns.