806: Lent, Long, and Length (-en Day 7) Feb 21, 2017
'Lent'—when it isn't used as the perfect tense form of 'lend'—is a Christian holiday that happens every spring. This word was adopted by the Church and was used starting in Middle English as an abbreviation of the Old English word for 'spring', 'lencten'. The Old English verb, 'lǣnan'—which turned into 'lend' and therefore, 'lent'—gained the 'd' from association to other verbs like, 'send' and 'bend' (though the related word, 'loan' did not get this alteration). Meanwhile, the holiday, Lent's earlier form, 'lencten' is now considered to be formed from adding the verbal suffix, '-en'. In this way, 'Lent', which is related to the word 'long', gained an ending that signifies amplification and intensification, so like how 'lengthen' means to increase in length, 'lencten' would have referred to the increased length of days as Spring progresses. See more about this verbal suffix here: verbal suffix: '-en'.
805: Adjectival -en Suffixes (-en Day 6) Feb 20, 2017
Simply because a suffix belongs to the broader category of "adjectival suffix" does not mean that all of those suffixes will function the same; though of course this is also the case with any type of suffix, not just for adjectival ones. The word, 'silken' therefore does not mean the same thing as, 'silky', the former referring to something made of silk, and the latter referring to reminiscence of the quality of silk, and might as well be 'silkesque' or 'silkish', which you can see more on here: the '-esque' suffix. There are a great many of these adjectival '-en' suffixes that are used to denote the idea of: "composed of", which sometimes appears as just an '-n' such as in 'silvern' or 'lethern'. Due to the relative importance of being able to differentiate between the meanings of, say, 'ashen' and 'ashy', 'woolen' and 'wooly', or 'earthen' and 'earthy', this Old English suffix is not used in just a few exceptional cases—like some of the other functions of this ending—but could probably be understood when applied to words that don't conventionally take this ending.
804: English Pluralization: Kid, Child and Man (-en Day 5) Feb 19, 2017
Frustratingly, the plural of 'kid' is 'kids', while the plural of 'child' is 'children', and the plural of 'man' is 'men' which you can see more about here: 'man' and remnants of English gender. The '-en' suffix is used to form the plural of certain nouns such as 'children', and 'oxen', but even in Old English when this was more prevalent, there were other ways that people created plural forms, such as changing the vowel used in some strong nouns like 'man', orFunctions of S by using an '-as' suffix which eventually turned into the modern, '-s' suffix (more on that below). The '-en' pluralizing suffix came about in Middle English from an earlier version, '-an'.
Functions of S
803: Verbal Suffixes in Widen and Strengthen (-en day 4) Feb 18, 2017
The derivatives of the word 'wide', by chance, take on forms that are systematic but quite rare in in English, such as the nominal '-th' suffix in 'width', which you can see more of in the link below. Not only that, but it also takes an '-(e)n' suffix, as in 'widen' which turns this term into a verb. More specifically, the '-en' suffix is used to transform adjectives into verbs that demonstrate development or amplification. This ending is also employed in order to make a verb from a noun, such as 'strengthen' that derives from 'strength' and not the adjectival form 'strong', though also not the etymologically related noun, 'string' which referred to loading a bow with an arrow. Unlike the other '-en' suffixes, this comes from the Old English '-nian' that developed over time; in fact, the verb 'to man' in Old English was 'mannian' from 'mann', but it no longer uses a verbal suffix.
802: Strong Verb Participles (-en day 3) Feb 17, 2017
While it is true that there are many ways in which '-en' is used, often the examples are few, and ever dwindling. Meanwhile, perhaps the most common occasion to see the suffix '-en' in English is when it forms the past participle of strong verbs, which you can learn more about here: Strong Verbs. Most of the English's surviving strong verbs, which is to say: verbs that change tense by altering the middle instead of adding common suffixes like, '-ed'—which attaches to weak verbs—come from Old English. Some strong verbs, such as 'take', with the participial form 'taken', or adjectives like 'spoken', derive from this ending. This is not the case for all strong verbs though, as many have a separate participial form, such as 'sing' and 'sung'. Interestingly, the '-ed' attached to weak verbs also comes from Old English, but is now by far the most popular.
Check out the yesterday's post on this versatile suffix: 'Vixen', 'Burden' and Inflectional Suffixes.
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.
800: chicken, cock and Diminutive Suffixes (-en day 1) Feb 15, 2017
This is the first in a series on the -en suffix to celebrate the 800th post. Make sure to keep up over the next week for the rest.
The majority of suffixes only have one meaning when attached to words, although there are certainly exceptions, such as '-s' (Functions of -s). '-en' is another case which can be added for a number of different effects, though some are only for certain words. One of these uses is to create diminutives of nouns such as 'chicken', and 'maiden', dating back to Old English. In the case of 'chicken', this is not to say the word is a diminutive of 'chick', as this may appear linguistically at first, though of course not logically. Instead, this term comes from the Old English 'cīcen, cȳcen', and is related to the Dutch, 'kieken', and the German, 'Küchlein' which both have diminutive suffixes of their own, and probably comes from the Old English, 'cocc', meaning 'cock, rooster'. This was later reinforced in Middle English by the Old French 'coq', which you can see more about here: The origins of 'coquette'.