Word families and root words

In a nutshell

Word families are groups of words that may share a common root word. They look similar to each other and share similar meanings.

Word families

Word families are words that are related to one another because they contain a common root word.

Root words

Root words contain the main meaning of a word. They can be used to form other words with similar meanings. This means that a root word can be turned into, for example, a noun, a verb or an adjective and still keep the same basic meaning of the root word.

Examples

*help*	*help*less	*help*er	*help*ful	to help
love	*love*ly	*love*r	*love*able	to love
*medi*cal	medicine	paramedic	*medi*cal	to medicate
play	*play*fully	player	playful	to play