20 Examples of Augmentatives

The Spanish language has particular morphological resources to add meanings to words. Augmentative suffixes are those that allow a quality to be exaggerated, either literally or figuratively . For example: door slam, big nose, bowl. 

The use of these  suffixes  (particles that are added at the end of the word), transform certain common nouns or adjectives into augmentatives.

Although dictionaries do not always include all augmentative nouns, language users know that words ending in a certain way (for example, in “ón” or “azo”) are intended to highlight the size of something, or its intensity.

• It can serve you:  diminutive, augmentative and derogatory adjectives

Examples of sentences with augmentatives

1. He erased it with a stroke of the pen.
2. He hit him with his tremendous hand.
3. The kid is already more than big.
4. A dark cloud peeked out .
5. Such a big man does not know how to prepare food.
6. She always so bossy.
7. He was slamming the door.
8. They bought a big dog to take care of the house.
9. A novelon of sixty chapters was written .
10. He goes out to dinner every Thursday with his buddies.
11. You can see that he was hungry: he devoured a plate of noodles.
12. He walks here and there with his cart.
13. It’s always the same bore .
14. I like him even though he’s a bit of a nose.
15. The short- eared pet was a famous murderer.

• See more in: Sentences with augmentative nouns

Characteristics of augmentatives

• Augmentatives are typical of the colloquial register, that is, of ordinary speech, so they are hardly used in formal settings.
• Augmentative suffixes do not form too long a list, and there is also no single, well-defined criterion to establish how the augmentative of a given noun should be formed.
• There are nouns that have more than one possible augmentative form.
• They are imposed by speech. For example, we say Amadeus is a peliculón  and Yesterday was partidazo  (not say Amadeus is a peliculazo  and Yesterday was one partidón ).
• Some words that include augmentatives have acquired their own identity, that is, they have been lexicalized with new meanings and that is why these do appear in dictionaries. For example: blackboard  (augmentative of ‘blackboard’), bowl  (augmentative of ‘cup’) or curtain  (augmentative of ‘cloth’).
• Sometimes augmentatives are applied to adjectives, and the function they come to have becomes much more subjective :  a kind of affectivity is added to the term. For example:  hefty, good-looking or big.

Diminutives

The words that make up the group of augmentatives have an immediate link with their opposites: diminutives , which assign a reduced size or intensity. We use them a lot in everyday life. For example: minute, little time, little flower.