1277: Affixes on Loan Words: -ous Jun 9, 2018

There are a lot of affixes in English which are able to attach them selves to a lot of words, but some are less productive. For instance, the suffix '-ous' can affix itself to words like 'danger' or 'courage', but this is not always where it will be present. In this situation, it is a suffix, but many if not most of the word where it is found cannot be parsed because those words were adopted wholesale from French (mostly Old French), and Latin, such as 'horrendous', 'enormous', or 'tremendous'.
Make sure also to check out Word Facts' video which came out today with an analysis of the film, Arrival.