Primary School English Quiz - Antonyms 5 - Prefixed Antonyms (Questions)

The previous quizzes exposed us to antonyms and their many types. In this quiz we will learn about antonyms which are formed by adding prefixes.

When you hurt yourself in the past you would remember your mother telling you “let me put some ‘antiseptic’ on your knee where it was scraped.” Do you know that ANTISEPTIC is a word formed from the word SEPTIC by adding the prefix ‘ANTI’? You would also have heard your father use the word illegal sometimes and here too, the word ILLEGAL is formed from the word LEGAL by adding the prefix ‘IL’. There are some words whose antonyms are derived by just adding a prefix to the original word. Such words have no ambiguity about their antonyms. Here are some examples:

UNTIDY is the antonym of TIDY. It is derived from the word TIDY by just adding the prefix ‘UN’.

INSECURE is the antonym of SECURE and it is derived from SECURE by adding the prefix ‘IN’.

DISLOYAL is the antonym of LOYAL and it is derived from LOYAL by adding the prefix ‘DIS’.

While ‘UN’, ‘IN’ and ‘DIS’ are the most common prefixes used, there are also words which make use of other prefixes. Prefixes such as ‘IR’, ‘NON’ and ‘IM’ are also commonly used to form antonyms of their original words.

The uniqueness of these words is that there is no gradation, relationship or complementary attribute to their original words. After adding the prefix the new word is just the antonym of the original word.

It is important to remember that a prefix goes with a particular word and it could change for a derivative of that word. For instance, the antonym of FORTUNE is MISFORTUNE but the antonym of FORTUNATE is UNFORTUNATE and not MISFORTUNATE.

Play this quiz and learn about some of the antonyms formed with prefixes.