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Study Guide · Chapter 4

PART B — THE ROOT INDEX (300-Plus Roots Across 29 Thematic Groups)

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Each root below lists a bridge word in bold — the one you should genuinely memorise cold. The rest are extra words in the same family; recognise them on sight, don't force-memorise each one individually.

Roots differ from prefixes in one crucial way: a prefix modifies, but a root carries the core meaning. This is why Part B is organised by theme rather than alphabet — grouping roots by what real-world domain they belong to (speech, thought, movement, law, war, money, food, family, colour) mirrors how your memory actually files new vocabulary. When you meet an unfamiliar word later and can say "this feels like it belongs with the law words" or "this feels like a colour word," you've already narrowed the root down to one of roughly a dozen candidates before you've even identified it precisely — that narrowing is most of the work.

This edition indexes far more roots than a typical shortlist, on purpose. You are not meant to master every single one on a first pass — you are meant to have a place to look a root up when you meet it in a mock test, so that over months of practice the index becomes something you've absorbed almost by accident, one encounter at a time.

B1. Roots of Speaking, Telling & Writing

Nearly a tenth of formal English vocabulary revolves around the act of communication itself — hardly surprising, given how much of law, journalism, and public life is about who said what, and how. This makes B1 one of the two or three highest-yield groups in the entire guide for exam purposes.

dict (to say/speak) → verdict (true saying), dictate, contradict, edict, malediction, benediction, dictum, indict, predict, dictionary
loqu/locu (to speak) → eloquent, loquacious, colloquial, soliloquy, circumlocution, grandiloquent, ventriloquist
fa/fess/fam (to speak, admit, reputation) → confess, affable, infant (literally "not yet speaking"), ineffable (too great to be spoken), fable, defame, famous
scrib/script (to write) → manuscript, transcribe, prescription, scribble, inscribe, postscript, ascribe, circumscribe
graph/gram (to write/draw) → autograph, epigram, telegram, biography, monograph, graphic, cartography
claim/clam (to shout, cry out) → exclaim, proclaim, clamour, acclaim, disclaim, reclaim
log/logue (word, speech, reason) → dialogue, monologue, eulogy (good words), catalogue, prologue, epilogue
nunci/nounce (to announce) → announce, pronounce, denounce, renounce, enunciate
serm (to string together words) → sermon, sermonise, unsermonised (rare, coined for illustration only — set aside)
verb (word) → verbose, verbatim, proverb, verbal, verbiage
lingu (tongue, language) → linguistics, bilingual, lingua franca, linguine (unrelated culinary borrowing, set aside)
nomen/nomin (name) → nominate, nomenclature, misnomer, ignominy (loss of name/reputation), nominal
loc/elocu (speech, delivery) → elocution, interlocutor, obloquy (public disgrace, "against-speech")
fat/fant (to speak, Latin fari) → infant, fate (literally "that which has been spoken/decreed"), preface

B2. Roots of Thought, Belief & Knowledge

Notice how many everyday words hide in this group once you look closely — reputation, dispute, deputy all trace back to the same "to think/reckon" root as compute, even though none of them look like maths on the surface. This is a useful reminder that a root's original, literal sense can drift a long way from any single modern descendant, which is exactly why anchoring to one strong bridge word matters more than memorising a dictionary definition of the root itself.

cred (to believe) → credible, incredulous, credentials, discredit, creed, credulous, accreditation
cogn/gno (to know) → recognise, agnostic, cognizant, prognosis, incognito, cognition, diagnose
sci (to know) → conscious, omniscient, prescience, science, conscience, nescient
doc/doct (to teach) → doctrine, indoctrinate, docile, doctorate, document
put (to think, reckon) → compute, reputation, dispute, deputy, impute, disputable
sapi/sag (to be wise) → sagacious, savant, sage, sapient
ment (mind) → mental, demented, mentor, comment, mnemonic (unrelated Greek cousin — see Part D for the mentor story)
opin (to think, suppose) → opinion, opinionated
jud (to judge — overlaps B11) → judge, judicious, adjudge

B3. Roots of Taking, Holding & Making

This is the largest root-family in the guide by number of exam-relevant derivatives, mainly because cap/cep/cip, ten/tain, and struct each independently generate dozens of everyday and formal words. It is worth spending extra time here: mastering just these three roots alone will unlock a noticeably large slice of any competitive-exam vocabulary list.

cap/cep/cip/ceive (to take/seize) → capture, perceive, incipient, susceptible, receive, deceive, intercept, emancipate (literally "to take out of the hand," i.e. free from ownership)
ten/tain/tin (to hold) → retain, tenacious, tenure, sustain, contain, pertinent, abstain, maintain
fac/fic/fect/fy (to make/do) → manufacture, deficient, benefactor, artifice, effect, magnify, edifice, proficient
struct/stru (to build) → construct, obstruct, infrastructure, instruct, destruction, construe
rupt (to break) → interrupt, disrupt, bankrupt, rupture, corrupt (literally "broken together, spoiled")
frag/fract (to break) → fragment, fracture, fragile, refract, infraction
ject (to throw) → reject, inject, projectile, dejected, conjecture, interject
tract (to pull, drag) → attract, extract, subtract, distract, retract, intractable
pos/pon (to place, put) → position, component, postpone, oppose, dispose, exponent
plic/plex/ploy (to fold) → complicate, duplicate, implicit, perplex, deploy, complex

B4. Roots of Movement

Movement roots are the backbone of English's most "physical-feeling" abstract vocabulary — words about progress, regression, persuasion, and change are almost always, underneath, words about literally going somewhere or pushing something. This is a useful intuition to keep: if a word feels like it's describing motion even though the sentence is about an idea or a policy, look for one of the roots below.

mit/mis (to send) → transmit, dismiss, emissary, remit, permit, submit, intermittent
duc/duct (to lead) → conduct, induce, aqueduct, abduct, produce, seduce, viaduct
ced/ceed/cess (to go/yield/withdraw) → precede, recede, accessible, concession, exceed, antecedent, secede
pel/puls (to drive/push) → compel, repulsive, propulsion, expel, impel, dispel
vert/vers (to turn) → introvert, avert, versatile, controversy, subvert, revert, incontrovertible
gress/grad (to step/go) → progress, digress, gradual, retrograde, transgress, egress, gradation
curr/curs (to run) → current, cursory, excursion, precursor, incur, recurrent
mob/mot/mov (to move) → mobile, motive, remove, promotion, momentum, immobilise
it/itin (to go, journey) → exit, itinerary, transit, initiate, ambition (literally "going around" for votes)
vad/vas (to go, walk) → invade, evasive, pervasive, evade

B5. Roots of Feeling & Character

Feeling-and-character roots are what give Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words their emotional colour — a word built on bene- or magn- will almost always read as approving, while one built on mal- will almost always read as disapproving, even before you've worked out the precise dictionary meaning. Reading Comprehension questions that ask about a passage's "tone" are frequently answerable just by scanning for which family dominates the author's word choices.

bene/bon (good) → benevolent, benefactor, benign, bonus, benediction, bona fide
mal/male (bad) → malicious, malady, malign, malevolent, malaise, dismal
magn (great) → magnanimous, magnify, magnitude, magnate, magniloquent
ver (truth) → verify, veracity, verdict, verisimilitude, aver, veritable
anim (mind, life, spirit) → animate, unanimous, animosity, magnanimous, pusillanimous, equanimity, inanimate
pac (peace) → pacify, pacifist, pact, pacifier
fid (faith, trust) → fidelity, confidant, diffident, perfidious, bona fide
grat (pleasing, thankful) → gratitude, ingratiate, gratify, congratulate, ingrate
pass (to feel, suffer) → passion, compassion, impassive, dispassionate, passive
ard/ars (to burn) → ardent, arson, arid (dried by heat)

B6. Roots of People, Society & Rule

Editorial and current-affairs vocabulary — the register most SSC and Bank exam passages are drawn from — leans heavily on this group, because so much news writing is fundamentally about who governs, how, and over whom. Learning this group well pays off specifically in Reading Comprehension passages about politics, governance, and social policy, which are among the most frequently set passage topics.

gen (birth, kind, race) → generate, homogeneous, indigenous, gender, genesis, progeny, degenerate
dem (people) → democracy, demographic, epidemic, demagogue, endemic
arch (rule, chief, first) → monarchy, anarchy, archetype, archbishop, matriarch, oligarchy (with olig = few)
cracy/crat (rule, power) → bureaucracy, autocrat, meritocracy, theocracy, plutocrat (rule by the wealthy)
phil (love) → philanthropy, bibliophile, philology, philanderer, philharmonic
mis/miso (hate) → misanthrope, misogamy, misogyny, misanthropic
polis/polit (city, citizens) → politics, metropolis, cosmopolitan, policy
civ (citizen) → civic, civilian, civility, civilise
soci (companion, ally) → social, associate, dissociate, sociable, sociology
popul (people) → population, populist, popularity, depopulate

B7. Roots of Sense, Sound & Silence

Sensory roots are unusually reliable for guessing meaning even from a single unfamiliar derivative, because they describe physical, concrete experiences (hearing, seeing, touching, feeling) that resist the kind of drifting, metaphorical reinterpretation that abstract roots undergo. If you can identify aud, vid/vis, or spec inside a word, you can be almost certain the word has something to do with perception, even before working out the exact sense.

aud (to hear) → audible, auditorium, audience, audit, inaudible
vid/vis (to see) → visible, evident, supervise, vista, envision, improvise, vivid (unrelated: from viv)
spec/spect/spic (to look) → spectator, retrospect, perspective, conspicuous, circumspect, introspective, specimen
son (sound) → resonate, unison, sonic, dissonance, sonorous
voc/vok (voice, to call) → vocal, revoke, evocative, advocate, vociferous, invoke, equivocal
tang/tact (to touch) → tangible, contact, intact, tangent, contagious
sent/sens (to feel, perceive) → sensitive, resent, consensus, sentiment, dissent, sentient
sil/tacit (silence) → silence (native English), tacit, reticent, taciturn
strep/strident (noise, harshness) → obstreperous, strident

B8. Roots of Life, Death & Time

A short group, but a dense one — chron alone anchors a cluster of words (chronic, chronicle, synchronise, anachronism) that appear across science, history, and literature passages alike, making it disproportionately valuable relative to how few roots are in this group.

viv/vit (life) → vivid, survive, vitality, revive, vivacious, convivial
mort (death) → mortal, immortalise, moribund, mortify (literally "to make dead," now "to deeply embarrass"), amortise
chron (time) → chronological, synchronise, anachronism, chronic, chronicle
ann/enn (year) → annual, perennial, centennial, anniversary, biennial
temp (time) → temporary, contemporary, extemporaneous, tempo
sen (old) → senior, senile, senate (originally, a council of elders)

B9. Roots of Body & Health

Body-and-health roots tend to be transparently Greek (B9 leans more Greek than most other groups — notice how many entries here end in -ology or use a connecting -o-), which makes this a good group to practise the Greek-recognition skill from Part G before you reach that section formally.

corp (body) → corporate, incorporate, corpse, corpulent, corporal
path (feeling, suffering, disease) → sympathy, pathetic, apathy, pathology, empathy, antipathy
ped/pod (foot) → pedestrian, expedite, impede, podium, tripod
man/manu (hand) → manual, manufacture, manuscript, manipulate, emancipate
derm (skin) → dermatology, epidermis, hypodermic
cardi (heart) → cardiac, cardiology, tachycardia
somn (sleep) → insomnia, somnolent, somnambulist
cur/cure (to care for, heal) → curative, procure, manicure, sinecure ("without care" — a post requiring no work)

B10. Roots of Size & Measurement

Size-and-measurement roots show up constantly in quantitative and science-adjacent RC passages — economics articles are full of macro- and micro- compounds, and geography passages lean on metr/meter words.

magn (great) → (see B5)
micro- (small, Greek) → microscope, microcosm, microbe, microchip
macro- (large, Greek) → macroeconomics, macrocosm
min (small) → minute, diminish, minuscule, minority
ampl (large, full) → ample, amplify, amplitude
later (side) → lateral, unilateral, bilateral, collateral
metr/meter (measure) → metric, thermometer, symmetry, perimeter, diameter
long (long) → elongate, longevity, prolong

B11. Roots of Law, Justice & Punishment

Legal and judicial vocabulary shows up constantly in current-affairs passages about courts, legislation, and policy — and unlike some of the more literary groups above, these roots are worth learning not just for guessing unfamiliar words but because the exact words themselves recur directly in exam passages on governance topics.

jud/jur/jus (law, right, judgment) → judicial, jurisdiction, justice, prejudice, perjury, adjudicate
leg/legis (law) → legal, legislate, legitimate, illegal, privilege ("private law")
culp (blame, fault) → culpable, culprit, exculpate, inculpate
san/sanc (holy, inviolable) → sanction, sanctuary, sacrosanct, sanctity
pun/pen (to punish) → punitive, penalty, impunity, penitent
arbit (to judge, decide) → arbitrate, arbiter, arbitrary, arbitration
test (to bear witness) → testify, testament, attest, protest, contest
flag/flict (to strike, punish) → afflict, inflict, conflict, flagellate

B12. Roots of War & Conflict

A compact group, but every one of these roots earns its place — bellicose, belligerent, and pugnacious rank among the most frequently tested "aggressive personality" adjectives across SSC and banking vocabulary sections, almost always paired against a calmer synonym like conciliatory or amicable in the answer options.

bell (war) → belligerent, bellicose, antebellum, rebellion
pugn (to fight) → pugnacious, impugn, repugnant, pugilist
mil/milit (soldier) → military, militant, militia
vinc/vict (to conquer) → victory, invincible, convince, evict, evince
arm (weapon) → armistice (a halting of weapons), armament, disarm
fend/fens (to strike, defend) → defend, offend, fend off, defensive
cid/cis (to kill, cut) → homicide, incisive, decisive, fratricide, suicide
vuln (to wound) → vulnerable, invulnerable

B13. Roots of Money, Trade & Commerce

Banking-exam aspirants in particular should linger here: pend/pens (to weigh/pay) and val (worth) both feed directly into finance-adjacent vocabulary that shows up in editorial passages about markets, budgets, and compensation.

pretium (price) → appreciate, depreciate, precious, price (native derivative)
val (worth, strength) → valid, value, prevail, valour, equivalent, invalidate
pend/pens (to weigh, pay, hang) → expensive, compensate, pension, stipend, dispense, propensity
luc/lucr (gain, profit) → lucrative, lucre
merc (trade, reward) → mercantile, mercenary, commerce, merchant
negoti (business, dealing) → negotiate, negotiable, renegotiate
fisc (public treasury) → fiscal, confiscate
ops/op (wealth, resources) → opulent, copious (via a related sense of abundance)
larg (giving generously) → largesse, enlarge

B14. Roots of Shape & Form

Notice how naturally form takes on suffixes to shift part of speech (conform → conformity → conformist), which is exactly the mechanism Part C's suffix-chains section formalises.

form (shape) → conform, deform, reformation, uniform, transform, formidable
morph (shape, Greek) → metamorphosis, amorphous, anthropomorphic
fig (to shape, fashion) → figurative, configuration, disfigure, effigy
typ (type, model, impression) → typical, prototype, stereotype, typify
plasm/plast (to mould) → plastic, protoplasm, malleable (related sense)
sculpt (to carve) → sculpture, sculptor

B15. Roots of Number & Counting

A group that overlaps lightly with the quantity prefixes of A3, but focuses on roots that behave as free-standing word-parts of their own rather than prefixes glued to a root.

numer (number) → numerous, enumerate, innumerable, numeral, supernumerary
calc (pebble, to count — pebbles were used for reckoning) → calculate, calculus, calculating
cent (hundred) → century, percentage, centurion, centipede, centenary
mill (thousand) → millennium, millipede, millionaire
dec/deca (ten, Greek) → decade, decathlon, decalogue
quot (how many, how great) → quota, quotient, quotable
sum (total, highest) → summit, summary, consummate
integer/integr (whole, untouched) → integrate, integrity, disintegrate

B16. Roots of Colour

A group rarely gathered together in exam guides, but genuinely productive — colour roots surface in biology and chemistry vocabulary (chlorophyll, melanin) as often as in ordinary descriptive language, and English typically kept both a Latin and a Greek word for each colour, exactly the doublet pattern discussed in Part G.

chrom (colour, Greek) → chromatic, monochrome, chromosome, polychrome
alb (white, Latin) → album, albino, albescent
melan (black, Greek) → melancholy, melanin, melanoma
nigr (black, Latin) → denigrate, nigrescent
rub/rus (red, Latin) → ruby, rubicund, russet
eryth (red, Greek) → erythrocyte
virid/verd (green, Latin) → verdant, viridescent
chlor (green, Greek) → chlorophyll, chlorine
xanth (yellow, Greek) → xanthic
leuc/leuk (white, Greek) → leukaemia, leucocyte
cyan (blue, Greek) → cyanide, cyan
flav (yellow, Latin) → flavescent, flavone

B17. Roots of Family & Kinship

Kinship roots are less common as whole standalone words in exam lists, but appear constantly as hidden components inside legal, social, and even zoological vocabulary — patriarch, fraternity, maternal instinct, and consanguinity all trace to entries below.

pater/patr (father) → paternal, patriarch, patriotic, expatriate, patrimony
mater/matr (mother) → maternal, matriarch, matrimony, alma mater
frater/fratr (brother) → fraternity, fraternise, fratricide
soror (sister) → sorority, sororal
fili (son/daughter) → affiliate, filial
germ (of the same blood/full-sibling, Latin) → germane (closely related, hence "relevant")
consanguin (blood relation) → consanguinity

B18. Roots of Food & Eating

vor (to eat, devour) → carnivore, herbivore, voracious, devour, omnivorous
aliment (nourishment) → alimentary, aliment
nutri (to nourish) → nutrition, nutrient, malnutrition
gust (taste) → gustatory, disgust, gusto
sat/satur (to fill, to have enough) → satiate, saturate, insatiable, satisfy
culin (kitchen) → culinary
pan/panis (bread, Latin) → companion (literally "one who shares bread with you"), pantry
lact (milk) → lactose, lactate, lactic

B19. Roots of Sleep & Rest

somn (sleep — see also B9) → insomnia, somnolent, somnambulist
dorm (to sleep) → dormant, dormitory, dormouse
quiet/quies (rest) → quiescent, disquiet, acquiesce, tranquil
sopor (deep sleep) → soporific
oti (leisure) → otiose (serving no purpose, idle)

B20. Roots of Motion Up & Down

scand/scend (to climb) → ascend, descend, transcend, condescend
lev (light, to rise) → levitate, elevate, alleviate, relevant, levity
grav (heavy) → gravity, aggravate, grave, gravitas
cumb/cub (to lie down) → recumbent, succumb, incubate, incumbent
sist/sta/stat (to stand) → consist, stationary, static, circumstance, obstacle
surg (to rise) → surge, resurgent, insurgent

B21. Roots of Breaking & Joining

Breaking roots (rupt, frag/fract — see also B3) sit naturally against their opposite: the roots of binding and joining. Learning them as a matched pair makes both easier to hold in memory, the same way hyper-/hypo- worked as a pair in Part A.

jung/junct (to join) → conjunction, junction, adjunct, injunction
nex/nect (to bind) → connect, annex, nexus
liga/lig (to bind) → ligament, obligate, religion (literally "to rebind")
nod (knot) → node, denouement (the "untying" of a plot's knots)
ser (to join in a row) → series, serial, assert (originally, to join oneself to a claim)
scind/scis (to cut, split) → rescind, scissors, schism (Greek cousin)
secare/sect (to cut) → dissect, bisect, intersect, sector

B22. Roots of Giving & Taking

don (to give) → donate, pardon, condone, donor
dat/dit (to give) → edit (literally "to give out"), tradition (to hand over), extradite
trib (to give, allot) → tribute, contribute, attribute, distribute
rap/rept (to seize) → rapacious, surreptitious, rapture
prehend/prehens (to seize, grasp) → comprehend, apprehend, reprehensible

B23. Roots of Seeing & Hiding

Seeing itself is covered fully in B7 (vid/vis, spec); grouped here is the opposite idea — roots of concealment — so the two sit as a natural pair.

cel (to hide) → conceal, cell (originally a small, hidden chamber)
lat (hidden, carried) → latent, translate (literally "carried across")
crypt (hidden, Greek) → cryptic, encrypt, apocalypse (literally "an uncovering")
occult (hidden, Latin) → occult, occlude

B24. Roots of Wind, Water, Fire & Earth

The classical "four elements" still leave a strong fingerprint on English vocabulary, and each element typically kept both its Latin and Greek root, again illustrating the doublet pattern in Part G.

aer (air, Greek) → aerial, aerobic, aerosol
flu/flux (to flow) → fluent, influx, fluctuate, affluent
aqua (water, Latin) → aquatic, aquarium, aqueduct
hydr (water, Greek) → hydrate, dehydrate, hydraulic
mar (sea, Latin) → maritime, submarine
ign (fire, Latin) → ignite, igneous
pyr (fire, Greek) → pyre, pyrotechnics, pyromaniac
terr (earth, Latin) → terrestrial, territory, subterranean
ge/geo (earth, Greek) → geography, geology

B25. Roots of Mind & Madness

psych (mind, Greek) → psychology, psychiatrist, psychosomatic
phren (mind, Greek) → frantic (from phrenetic), frenzy
mania (madness, obsession) → maniac, kleptomania, monomania
vesan/insan (mad) → insane, insanity

B26. Roots of Animals

Latin and Greek supplied their own adjective forms for common animals — precisely the kind of vocabulary that appears in "relating to ___" one-word substitution questions.

can (dog, Latin) → canine, canary (originally "dog-island" birds)
fel (cat, Latin) → feline
equ (horse, Latin) → equine, equestrian
avi (bird, Latin) → aviary, aviation
pisc (fish, Latin) → piscine, pisciculture
zoo (animal, Greek) → zoology, zodiac
ornith (bird, Greek) → ornithology
ichthy (fish, Greek) → ichthyology
bov (cow, Latin) → bovine
lup (wolf, Latin) → lupine

B27. Roots of Plants & Growth

flor (flower) → florid, flourish, floral
arbor (tree) → arboreal, arboretum
herb (plant, grass) → herbivore, herbaceous
rad/radic (root) → radical, eradicate
cresc/cret (to grow) → crescent, increment, accretion
germ/germin (to sprout) → germinate, germ
sem (seed) → seminar, disseminate, seminal

B28. Roots of Light & Darkness

lum/lumin (light, Latin) → illuminate, luminous, luminary
luc (light, Latin) → lucid, translucent, elucidate
photo (light, Greek) → photography, photosynthesis
phos (light, Greek) → phosphorus
obscur (dark, unclear) → obscure
umbra (shadow) → umbrella, penumbra
noct (night, Latin) → nocturnal
nyct (night, Greek) → nyctophobia

B29. Roots of Beginning & Ending

A fitting final group: appropriately, it is about origins and conclusions, which is also a natural bridge into the suffix-chains and worked dissections that follow in later parts of the guide.

init (to begin) → initiate, initial, initiative
prim (first) → primary, primitive, primeval
incip (to begin) → incipient
nov (new) → novice, innovate, novel, renovate
fin (end, boundary) → finite, infinite, finale, definitive
term (end, boundary) → terminate, terminus, terminal
ultim (last) → ultimate, penultimate
extrem (outermost) → extremity, extremist

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