801: vixen, burden, and Inflectional Suffixes (-en day 2) Feb 16, 2017
Following yesterday's post, to which there is a link down below, there are even more ways that '-en' functions as an inflectional suffix for nouns, meaning that with the addition of this suffix, a noun—in this case—remains a noun. In this way, '-en' works to form feminine nouns; as English doesn't have gender and such terms are dated or optional, these only exist for a few terms such as 'vixen', which is a female fox in addition to the later sense for the word as "a spiteful woman". Moreover, '-en' is used to create abstract nouns like 'burden'. There is no word, 'burd' now, but 'burden' does come from the word, 'bear', which you can see more about here: Born and Borne.