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Affixes
One of the most immediately useful derivational affixes for the beginner is the prefix mal-, which derives antonyms: peza (heavy), malpeza (light); supren (upwards), malsupren (downwards); ami (to love), malami (to hate); lumo (light), mallumo (darkness). However, except in jokes, this prefix is not used when an antonym exists in the basic vocabulary: suda (south), not "malnorda" from 'north'; manki (to lack, intr.), not "malesti" from 'to be'.

The creation of new words through the use of grammatical (i.e. inflectional) suffixes, such as nura (mere) from nur (only), tiama (contemporary) from tiam (then), or vido (sight) from vidi (to see), is covered in the article on Esperanto grammar. What follows is a list of the main lexical affixes. Many of these, however, behave as any other word, in that their relative order in a compound is determined by semantics, not grammar; they are considered affixes for their historical derivation.

When a root receives more than one affix, the order does matter, as affixes modify the entire stem they're attached to. That is, the outer ones modify the inner ones. Most affixes are themselves roots, and as such have an inherent part of speech. This is indicated by the final part-of-speech vowel in the suffix list below. A few affixes do not affect the part of speech of the root; for the suffixes listed in the tables below, this is indicated by a hyphen in place of the final vowel.

List of prefixes
There are, in addition, affixes not listed here: technical affixes, such as the biological family suffix -edo seen in numidedo (Guineafowls); a few taken from Ido, such as -oza (full of) in montoza (mountainous), muskoloza (muscular), poroza (porous); and literary or poetic proposals at varying degrees of acceptance, such as the laudative (praising) suffix -el- in skribelo (fine penmanship) [compare skribaĉo (scrawl)], or kia domelo! (what a house!) [compare domaĉo (hovel)].

Lexical (i.e. derivational) affixes may act as roots by taking one of the grammatical suffixes: mala (opposite), eta (slight), ano (a member), umo (a doohickey), eble (possibly), iĝi (to become), ero (a bit, a crumb). Also, through compounding, lexical roots may act as affixes: vidi (to see), povi (to be able to), vidpova (able to see, not blind); ĉefo (head, chief), urbo (a city), ĉefurbo (a capital). It is quite common for prepositions to be used as prefixes: alveni (to arrive), from al (to) and veni (come); senespera (hopeless), from sen (without) and espero (hope); pripensi (to consider), from pri (about) and pensi (to think); vendi pogrande (sell wholesale), from po (at the rate of) and grande (large [quantity]), etc. There is even aliĝilo (registration form), from the preposition al (to) and the suffixes -iĝ- (to become) and -ilo (a tool).