-fy

-fy

This suffix forming English verbs corresponds to French -fier and Latin -ficare. It occurs from the 15c onwards in words either borrowed whole from French or modelled on French forms (e.g. beautify, classify, horrify, pacify), and is also an active suffix occasionally forming new (often somewhat jocular) words such as bullify (18c = to make into a bully), Frenchify (16c), and ladify (17c). These words have inflections in -ifies, -ified, -ifying. When there is a choice of spelling between -ify and -yfy (as with countrify/-yfy and ladify/-yfy) the spelling in -ify is preferable. A small group of words end in -efy (e.g liquefy, stupefy) and inflect -efies, -efied, -efying.