How many of us know the word
"accelerate". Every one of us...Right??? To accelerate means, to
speed up. Let's look at the word "accelerate" again. This time with
more attention. "accelerate". Notice the part that is
underlined....oooh.. It's the same word we learnt yesterday (Celerity means
speed). We know the word "accelerate" from our childhood. But
unfortunately we don't know the meaning of "celerity".
The story doesn't end here. There are so many other
words of this nature. Come on...let's explore
them. ad- is a
prefix which means towards. When ad- is
added in front of any word, it acts as an intensifier (which
intensifies the meaning of a word) to that particular word.
Have a look at these words
ad + celerate =
adcelerate --------------> accelerate
ad + climate = adclimate
---------------> acclimate
ad + fluent
= adfluent ---------------> affluent
ad + gregate =
adgregate ---------------> aggregate
ad + literation = alliteration
-------------> alliteration
ad + notate
= adnotate ---------------> annotate
ad + certain
= adcertain ---------------> ascertain
So when ad- is
added at the beginning of any word, the new word carries the same meaning but
with more intensity. Let's know how this whole transformation occurred.
As shown in the above list "ad+celerate" became "adcelearte".
But we can imagine how difficult it is to pronounce this word. So it was again
transformed into "accelerate". The same transformation has
occurred to all other words.
So don't try to remember both
the words. Instead know only one of them, and the second will always
be in your armoury