Word Root: The word within word

Have you ever come across a long, difficult English word and thought,

“I’ve never seen this before. How am I supposed to know what it means?”

That’s where word roots come in.

A word root is the basic part of a word. It carries the core meaning of the word. Think of it like the heart of a word — everything else (prefixes and suffixes) just adds to it.

Why Is This Useful?

If you can recognize the root of a word, you can often:

Guess the meaning of unfamiliar words,
Learn related words more quickly,
Understand academic texts (like in IELTS Reading),
And sound more formal or educated in your writing and speaking.

So instead of memorizing 500 new words, you can understand just one root — and it opens the door to 10 or 20 related words.

Let me show you how.

What Is a Root Word?

A root word is the part of the word that contains the core idea or meaning.

We build longer words by:

Adding prefixes to the beginning
(e.g., “un-”, “pre-”, “sub-”)
Adding suffixes to the end
(e.g., “-able”, “-ment”, “-ist”)

But the root stays in the middle, holding the main meaning.

A Simple Example

Take the word “construct.”

The root here is “struct”, which means “to build.”
When we say “construct,” we mean to build something.

Now look at other words with the same root:

structure = something that is built
instruct = to build knowledge in someone
destruction = the act of breaking down something that was built

👉 Even if you don’t know “destruction,” once you know “struct” = build, you can guess the meaning: “something is being un-built or torn down.”

This is how word roots help you understand new vocabulary.

Where Do Word Roots Come From?

Most word roots in English come from:

Latin (used in academic, legal, and scientific language)
Greek (used in medicine, science, and philosophy)

That’s why you see roots like:

bio (Greek for “life”) → biology, biography, antibiotic
dict (Latin for “say/speak”) → predict, dictionary, contradict
port (Latin for “carry”) → transport, export, portable

These roots appear in hundreds of English words — especially in IELTS texts and formal essays.

Real-Life IELTS Example

Imagine you’re reading an IELTS passage about climate change, and you see the word “biodiversity.”

You’ve never seen this word before. But if you break it down:

bio = life
diversity = variety or difference

So biodiversity = variety of life (in ecosystems, nature, etc.)

Even without a dictionary, you understood the word — because you knew the roots.

Root Word Families

Let’s look at a few root word “families” — sets of words that grow from the same root:

1. Root: dict = to say or speak

predict = to say something before it happens
dictionary = a book of words that are “said” or defined
verdict = a decision said by a jury or judge
contradict = to say the opposite of what someone else says

You can see how all these words are connected through “saying” or speaking.

2. Root: cred = believe/trust

credit = trust in your ability to pay back
credible = believable
incredible = not believable (too amazing!)
credibility = the quality of being trusted

So when IELTS asks you to evaluate sources or write an essay, knowing the word “credible” is useful—and so is knowing where it comes from.

3. Root: man = hand

manual = done by hand
manipulate = to skillfully handle (by hand or mind)
manufacture = to make something by hand (originally)
manager = someone who handles people or tasks

Even modern job terms come from ancient root words!

🔸 How Word Roots Help in IELTS

In the IELTS Reading section, you often see unfamiliar academic vocabulary. But most of it is formed using common Latin or Greek roots.

If you’ve trained your brain to notice these patterns, you’ll understand much more—even if the full word is new.

In Writing Task 2, using root-based formal words (e.g., “transportation,” “reduction,” “globalization”) makes your writing sound more academic and helps you reach Band 7+ in Lexical Resource.