The Suffix -ous (-ious, -eous, -uous)

 

The suffix -ous (-ious, -eous, -uous) is added to nouns to form adjectives.

It may be added:

a) directly to the noun:

humour - humorous

b) dropping the final -e or -y of the noun:

fame – famous

chivalry – chivalrous

c) adding -i or -e before the suffix:

space – specious

right – righteous

d) changing -y to -i:

glory – glorious

mystery – mysterious

 

The choice of -ous, -ious, -eous, -uous depends on their pronunciation to a certain extent.

Thus, if you hear:

1) [jʊəs ], write –uous;

2) [əs ], after any consonant but [s], write -ous;

3) [əs ], after [s], -ious is most probable, but -eous is also possible;

4) [iəs ] write either -ious or -eous

Some of the adjectives should be memorized.

Study and Memorize the Following List

various	jealous	ingenious	prosperous	obvious
curious	tremendous	illustrious	conscious	unanimous
previous	ominous	hideous

Exercises

 

1. Copy the words listed below into four columns under the headlines: 1) -ous; 2) -eous; 3) -ious; 4) -uous. Above each heading give its transcription. Read the words aloud carefully:

Analogous, conspicuous, curious, mysterious, righteous, ambiguous, famous, grievous, ferocious, spontaneous, jealous, spirituous, wondrous, homogeneous, furious, piteous, miraculous, specious, desirous, presumptions, vigorous, pretentious, outrageous, herbaceous, copious, scrupulous, continuous, poisonous, spacious, simultaneous, ingenious, gorgeous, villamous.

2. Write the proper endings of the words listed below:

disastr[]	marvell[]	ridicul[]	impet[]
gener[]	virt[]	mischiev[]	contempt[]
fat[]	tremend[]	monstr[]	traitor[]

3. Insert e or i:

outrag_ous	relig_ous	advantag_ous	gorg_ous	judic_ous
office_ous	spec_ous	malic_ous	contag_ous	delir_ous
herbac_ous	consc_ous	courag_ous	prec_ous	vic_ous
spac_ous	pit_ous	grac_ous	melod_ous	fastid_ous

4. Give the adjectives related to the nouns listed below by adding the suffix -ous (-ious, -eous, -uous):

beauty, glory, desire, danger, pity, pomp, mystery, adventure, outrage, duty, member, fury, advantage, ruin, envy, murder, nerve, thunder, ceremony, humour, industry, study, harmony, joy, luxury.

5. Insert the proper vowel wherever necessary:

a) a herbac_ous border

their gorg_ ous spac_ous house

this harmon_ous group of buildings

the glor_ous autumn weather

her parents’ right_ous anger

his outrag_ous behaviour

ambig_ous words

her contempt_ous look

that funny ceremony_ous welcome

fastid_ous about her clothes

b) 1. Are you dub_ous of his scrupol_ous honesty? 2. We have been talking about this env_ous of Ann’s tremend_ous success. 4. Scarlet fever is a contag_ous disease. 5. I am fur_ous with his obv_ous swindle. 6. Such habits are injur_ous remark. 8. He is conspic_ous for his courag_ous deeds.

Exercise 6. Translate the following sentences into Russian. Paraphrase those parts of the examples in which you find adjectives in -eous.

1. His friendship with Miss Dolly was almost instantaneous. 2.1 may as well mention here that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy, worn-out man of fashion. 3. He loved the disorder of the old eighteenth century farm house, the collection of miscellaneous objects of all kinds that littered the rooms. 4. Like many men who appear spontaneous at a first meeting, we. each had a vein of reserve. 5. She was years older than he was, and she was hideous. 6. If he had not paused on the landing to dispose of his overcoat, their entrance would have been simultaneous. 7. The voices were courteous, silky, and just perceptibly tense

Exercise 7. Give an English adjective ending in -ous, -ious, -eous or -uous for the Russian adjectives or participles in the following sentences.

1. Maxwell’s tone was easy, self-confident, (презрительный). 2. There was something (простодушно-наивное) about the boy. 3. Don’t you think that’s an (остроумный) scheme? 4. You are very beautiful. You should have everything. Furs, (роскошный) clothes. 5. Toby was never (учтив), yet it was unlike him to be quite so rude. 6. The reign of Queen Victoria was famous for the (многочисленные) discoveries and inventions which happened in it. 7. It was (чудовищно), impossible, like opening the door of the lions’ cage at the Zoo and stepping inside. 8. They proceeded to organize а (роскошный, великолепный) banquet, at which everyone in town was welcomed. 9. Ted went at any task with an energy and (добросовестность) seldom seen in a sixteen-year-old boy. 10. This fellow seemed to be а (известный) explorer or something of the sort.

 

General Review

 

1. Complete the words listed below:

[f]		[k]		[G]		[C]
tou_	or_an	pin_	jer_	ju_	_ug	mar_	a_ieve
sheri_	_rase	anti_	sto_ing	_elly	marria_e	an_or	scor_
lau_	dea_	_orus	_ettle	sta_	mar_in	_est	_air
gol_	roo_	ki_	_aracter	_ipsy	_et	spee_	ba_elor
tra_ic	all_abet	s_eme	si_	sol_ier	hin_	pa_	i_

2. Give the four forms of the verb:

to lie	to agree	to lay	to die	to offer
to confer	to dry	to interfere	to catch	to peal
to marvel	to enjoy	to pay	to matter	to stay
to canoe	to limit	to dig	to fit	to argue

3. Add prefixes to make the words opposite in meaning:

legal	movable	fortune	natural	respect
material	furious	manageable	excused	kind
necessary	advisable	appropriate	avoidable	possible
satisfied	just	elegant	different	reasonable

4. Add suitable suffixes, write the new words:

expand	response	trace	appear	manage
admit	pardon	marvel	sleepy	agree
vary	occupy	judge	mercy	enjoy
repeat	correspond	pay	voice	fame

5. Find and correct the misspelt words:

arguement	admitting	listenning	seing	assured
happiness	begar	specialy	suggar	porrige
believe	relyable	painful	altogether	strangly
noticable	rarely	shyness	angryly	payed

 

 

 Homophones.

Homophones are words which are pronounced in the same way, but spelled in a different way.

 Copy the following homophones and look up their meaning in the dictionary:

   allowed — aloud; air — heir, be — bee; bare — bear, beat — beet; beach — beech; birth — berth; berry — bury; boar — bore; bean — been; bread— bred; brake — break; blue — blew; bow — bough; by — bye — buy; cell — sell; cent— sent— scent; course — coarse; currant— current; dear — deer; die — dye; dew — due; flower — flour; fare — fair; father — farther; feat — feet; forth — fourth; fo r — four — fore; fir — fur; gait — gate; grown — groan; great — grate.

Exercise 1. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word from each group:

a ir — heir: 1. He got up with an... of relief and yet reluctance. 2. The classroom should be...ed during the break. 3. John was the only... to his uncle’s estate.

allow ed — aloud: 1. She read the passage... so that her sister should understand what she meant. 2. Next day Jimmy was n o t... to leave the house again.

b are — b ear: 1. The garden looked... and deserted. 2. 1 can’t... the way you treat that man. 3. The... has a massive body, coarse heavy fur and relatively short limbs.

beach — beech: 1. All the family sat round the table under a huge... which grew near the house. 2. The day was stormy and there were very few people on the....

bean — been: 1. Don’t try to fool him with that suggestion. He knows how many...s make five. 2. I’ve always... treated as a gentleman.

 b eat — beet: 1. While we were cutting up potatoes, carrots and... root for the soup I looked up and suddenly burst out laughing. 2. For a moment I could not feel my heart. It had stopped...ing.

b e rry — bury: 1. Are you going to... yourself in your work? 2. There are a lot of different... and mushrooms in this forest.

b irth — b erth: 1. The upper... was occupied by a young man who never took part in our conversation. 2. The news that Mrs Davis had given... to a daughter seemed to make no impression on her relatives.

 blue — blew: 1. A heavy storm... up towards evening. 2.... is my favourite colour.

 bow — bough: 1. He was not a young man any longer; age had...ed his head. 2. He climbed onto the huge... of a pine. 3. He greeted him with a low....

brak e — b reak: 1. Jerry was the first to... the silence. 2. The driver put on the... and the car stopped. 3. Wait a bit. We’ll discuss it in the

b read — bred: 1. He remained serene in a houseful of ill-... people. 2. Her hands trembled while she was eating her... and butter.

cell — sell: 1. The... is a structural unit of plant and animal life. 2. Don’t... this book, you may need it in future.

 cent — sent — scent: 1. He could... trouble the moment he stopped onto the porch. 2. The doctor was... for immediately. 3. A... is a hundredth part of the U. S. dollar.

course — coarse: 1. The main... was steak with vegetables. 2. His hands were... and roughened by years of hard work. 3. Christine did an intensive Russian... before she came to Russia.

c u rre n t — c u rra n t: 1. We had reached the bridge over the river and stood there, gazing down at its strong.... 2.1 opened the gate and saw some... bushes and a line of white flowers fringing the path.

d ear — deer: 1. Two dollars! That was too... for such a trifle. 2. What a... little kitten! 3. An adult male... is called a stag.

dew — due: 1. The grass and leaves of the trees were covered with.... 2. The meeting is... to begin at 4 o’clock.

die — dye: 1. A man can... but once. 2. He is a liar of the blackest....

 fare — fair: 1. What is the... from here to Moscow? 2. He was met by a...-skinned young girl with a beautiful crown of black hair.

fa rth e r — fath er: 1. Her... lived not far from her, but they seldom saw each other. 2. Mr Jones’ house is just a few steps....

fir — fu r: 1. We were decorating the...-tree when our guests came. 2. She had a very beautiful...-coat on.

flower — flour: 1. She liked violets more than any other...s. 2.... is the finely ground meal of grain.

 for — four — fore: 1. The part of the arm between the elbow and the wrist is called the... arm. 2. These are good pills... a cough, but you must not take more than... pills at a time.

 gate — gait: 1. At the... I met a strangely familiar man dressed in black. 2. He walked with an awkward, stooping... which was due to nervousness.

 great — grate: 1. Her singing...so n my ear. 2.1 have a... desire to spend a fortnight in the country.

grown — groan: 1. He is...-up and must be responsible for his actions. 2. The wounded man...ed when they tried to lift him

 

Copy the following homophones and look up the meaning of the words which are new to you in the dictionary:

 hair — hare; heal — heel; hear — here; hoarse — horse; hole — whole; hour — our; knead — need; key — quay; lain — lane; lead — led; meat — meet; maid — made; mail — male; main — mane; minor — miner; night — knight; pain —pane; prey — pray; pear — p a ir— pare; pail — pale; piece — peace; plane — plain; read— reed; rain — reign — rein; root— route; ring— wring; road — rode — rowed.

 

Exercise 1. Insert in the blank spaces the appropriate word from each group:

h a ir — h are: 1. First catch your..., then cook it. 2. What he saw there made his... stand on end. 3. She took out all the pins and let her... fall down her back.

heal — heel: 1. Don’t worry! It’s just a scratch; it’ll soon.... 2. The dog followed the hunter at his...s.

 hoarse — horse: 1. Don’t look a g ift... in the mouth. 2. They talked themselves..., but never came to an agreement.

 hole — whole: 1. He ate three... oranges. 2. The... in the ground was covered with some fir branches.

 key — quay: 1.1 often met this man wandering along the... late in the evening, looking at the boats. 2. The landlady showed him upstairs and gave him a... to his room. 3. The symphony is in a major....

 lain — lane: 1.1 could see them now, walking up the..., him and his girl. 2. He had... motionless on the ground for an hour or so before he heard steps.

lead — led: 1. It could not be Tina! You must have been... astray by her strong resemblance to Sophie! 2. The... pencil does not, and never did, contain any....

 m ade — maid: 1. She... up her mind not to interfere. 2. The door was opened by the..., who told me that the master was out.

 m ail — male: 1.... animals are often larger than the females. 2. If you want the letter to get there quickly, send it by air....

m ain — mane: 1. The... library contains books of general interest. 2. The horse’s... was decorated with paper flowers and ribbons for the occasion.

m eat — m eet: 1. Though he worked hard, he had difficulty in making both ends....2. One man’s... is another man’s poison.

 m iner — m inor: 1. I’d always thought of him as a rather minor artist till then. 2. His father worked as a... in Donetsk. 3. A minor key is one of the two types of key in which music is written. n ig h t— knight: 1. T hat... I never thought of sleeping. 2. In the Middle Ages a mounted soldier serving under a feudal superior was called a....

pail — pale: 1. He turned... when I told him we had found the gun near the house. 2. Take some water from the... and wash your face.

 pain — pane: 1. The rain was beating at the window....2. He never took...s to get a proper education.

 p e a r — p a ir — p are: 1. They left the house in...s. 2. Very soon he was forced to... down his expenses. 3. The woman carried a basket full of huge golden...s.

piece — peace: 1. He tore the letter into...s and burned them in the fireplace. 2. May he rest in..., poor soul! 3. This play is all of a... with his previous works. 4. A... pipe is a pipe smoked by the North American Indians as a token o f....

plain — plane: 1. There are... brown curtains at the window of my bedroom. 2.... geometry deals with figures whose parts all lie in one....

 prey — pray: 1. These worries...ed upon his mind. 2. She knelt down and began to....

 ra in — reign — rein: 1. She kept a tig h t... on her husband. 2. He used to come to our place every Sunday,... or shine. 3. That building was designed during the... of Queen Victoria.

road — rode — row ed: 1. He jumped on his horse and... away. 2. She turned on to a narrow country... and went on faster. 3. We crossed the river in a boat. Jim..., and I steered with a short scull.

 root — route: 1. She was red as a beet-.... 2. Which... did he take? 

 

Copy the following homophones and look up the meaning of the words which are new to you in the dictionary:

sale — sail; sea — see; seen — scene; sew — sow; sheer — shear; sight — site; sole — soul; some — sum; son — sun; sort — sought; stare — stair; steak — stake; steel — steal; tale — tail; through — threw; vein — vain — vane; waist — waste; wait — weight; week — weak; weigh — way; where — wear — ware; whether — weather; witch — which; write — wright — right — rite

 

sail — sale: 1. It is time to s e t.... 2. Be sure to buy this book: it is on... now. 3. She...ed into the room and stopped to be admired.

 seen — scene: 1. We can’t agree on this point, but please don’t make a.... 2. He had never been... since that day.

sew — sow: 1.1 know that I can... and hem much better than my Aunty Em. 2.... the wind and reap the whirlwind. 3. It was too early to... yet. 4. To... one’s wild oats means to live immorally, usually when young.

s h e e r— shear: 1. To... means to remove wool from sheep with large scissors, or shears. 2. This work is a... waste of time.

sight — site: 1. My grandmother doesn’t read much now. Her... is failing. 2. Soames found a beautiful... for his new house.

 sole — soul: 1. You must have shoes with thicker...s. These won’t stand up to a long walk. 2. He is the... of humour. 3. Would you like... for your lunch? — Oh, I don’t like fish. Can I have some meat, please?

 so rt — sought: 1. They... shelter from the rain in a... of shed. 2.1 could not understand why he... my advice again; he had never followed it before.

 stare — stair: 1. Don’t... at the poor girl. She is embarrassed as it is. 2. A long flight of...s led down to the sea.

 steak — stake: 1. I’d like a nice... for my dinner. 2. A... is a thick sharpened stick used to support a tent, young trees or plants.

 steel — steal: 1. She managed to... a glance at the man. 2. He seemed to have nerves o f....

tale — tail: 1. Children like fairy-...s, but when they grow older, they prefer...s of adventure. 2. I could not make head or... of what he had told me.

th ro u g h — th rew: Jane... the apple away because it was rotten right....

vein — vain — vane: 1. She was so thin that...s stood out against her pale skin. 2. The weather... on top of the town hall pointed east. 3. She was nothing but a silly... girl. 4. She was not really bad, just... and thoughtless.

 w aist — w aste: 1. Joseph Sedley was as vain as a girl. He had dozens o f... coats, a special one for every occasion. 2. Don’t... your time reading this book.

 w ait — w eight: 1. In England apples are sold by... and oranges at so much a piece. 2.... a minute. Will you stand on the scales, please. I must put down your....

weigh — way: How often do you... yourself? — Twice a week. But it does not seem to help. I’m not getting any thinner. — That is not the... to lose weight. You should diet.

w here — w ear — w are: 1. After you pass the... house, turn to the right. 2.... can I find shoes for everyday...? 3. He used to keep a hard... shop. 4. There are all kinds of silver... for sale here.

 w h eth er — w eather: 1.... we go or... we stay, the result is the same. 2. He promised to come, though the... was awful.

which — witch: 1. A... is a person who professes or is supposed to practise magic, especially black magic. 2.1 don’t know... way we must take.

w rite — w rig h t— rig h t— rite: 1. He is a well-known play....2. You are old enough to know the difference between... and wrong. 3. He behaved in a strange way, as if performing some peculiar....4.... to me as often as you can, please