eldertongue

Old English · suffix

-um

Part of speech
suffix
Modern English
essentially

Meaning

  1. Used to form the dative plural of essentially all nouns

    hund (“dog”) + -um → hundum (“dogs”)

  2. Used to form the strong and weak dative and instrumental plural of adjectives

  3. Used to form the strong dative singular of masculine and neuter adjectives

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *-um, possibly from Proto-Germanic *-amaz with reduction and analogical zero-grade, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *-mos, the dative-ablative plural ending. Cognate to modern German -en and Polish -om.

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