| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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8. Word Formation: Plurals, Possessives, Affixes, and Compounds
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| § 10. de- |
| The prefix de- can be traced back through Middle English and Old French to Latin de, meaning “from, off, apart, away, down, out.” In English, de- usually indicates reversal, removal, or reduction. Thus deactivate means “to make inactive,” decontaminate means “to remove the contamination in,” and decompress means “to remove or reduce pressure.” De- is a prefix that occurs very frequently in English. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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