cranberry morpheme

Meaning

Noun

• A bound morpheme within a complex word that is a fossil and whose meaning is opaque to the present speakers of the language. May refer narrowly to morphemes which occur in a single word, or more broadly to fossilized morphemes generally.

Origin

• From the cran- of cranberry as an archetype. Cran- is from Low German Kraan, but is now a bound morpheme, hence an example of a cranberry morpheme.