Sunday, January 19, 2025

Some example of dis prefixed words in Italian Language

Dis prefix in Italian - change word meaning.
Dis prefix in Italian - change word meaning.


We recently walked into our pharmacy to pick up something we ordered the day before. It wasn’t there. As we left, the pharmacists said scusate per il disguido. My ears went huh, disguido. I had never heard it used before.

On the walk home, we had fun coming up with some words where “dis” is added as a prefix and it more or less negates the sense of the word (see note below).

Our top dis prefixed words heard during a typical day: disgrazia, disagio, dislivello, and dispiacere.

Here’s a list of similar words. Instead of thinking of these as exact formulas for creating the final prefixed word, use them as mnemonics to help you remember the meaning.

disaccordo – dis + accordo
disagio – dis + agio ("inconvenience, bother")
disarmato – dis + armato
disarmonia – dis + armonia
disavventura – dis + avventura
disdetto – dis + detto
disfatto – dis + fatto`
disfunzione – dis + funzione
disgrazia – dis + grazia ("bad luck, misfortune")
disguido – dis + guido ("error, mistake, glitch")
disguingere – dis + giungere
disgiunto – dis + giunto
disimpegno – dis + impegno
disinfestazione – dis + infestazione
disinformazione – dis + informazione
disinstallare – dis + installare
disinteressato – dis + interessato
dislivello – dis + livello ("difference in height, i.e., not level)
dismisura – dis + misura
disonore – dis + onore
disonesto – dis + onesto
dispiacere – dis + piacere ("sorrow, regret" or "to be sorry")
dispiaciuto – dis + piaciuto
disservizio – dis + servizio
dissimile – dis + simile
disuguaglianza – dis + uguaglianza
disumano – dis + umano
disuso – dis + uso

Note: Here we are talking about the sense of the “dis” prefix changing positive meaning of the word to negative. There are similar words where only “di” prefix does the work without the “s” (example: di + sperare => disperare). Or other cases where more of the first part of a word is lopped off before adding “dis” (example: di + apprezzo => disprezzo). However, the “dis” prefix catches our ear sthe most in Italian. For more information, see Treccani vocabolario dis and Treccani vocabolario di.

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