meg-

English

Prefix

meg-

1. Alternative form of mega- used before a vowel.

   megohm

Anagrams

• EGM, EMG, GEM, Gem, MGE, gem

Hungarian

Alternative forms

• mög- (dialectal)

Etymology

May be related to Erzya мекев (mekev, “back, backwards”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

• Audio

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Prefix

meg-

1. A verbal prefix with the following meanings:
   1. (original meaning, now rare) back, backwards

      fordul (“to turn”) → megfordul (“to turn around, to turn back”)

      jön (“to come”) → megjön (“to come back, get back, return”)

   2. It adds a perfective aspect to the verb in all tenses (a definite endpoint when the action can be considered completed).

      keres (“to look for”) → megkeres (“to locate, look for it until it is found”)

      talál (“to find accidentally, to come across”) → megtalál (“to find (after purposefully searching)”)

      néz (“to look at, for an indefinite time, as an ongoing activity”) → megnéz (“to give it a look, assess its quality, form an opinion, etc.”)

      hallgat (“to listen”, or: “to keep quiet”) → meghallgat (“to listen till the end attentively and comprehend, give it some thought”)

      vár (“to wait”) → megvár (“to wait until something happens, someone arrives or gets ready”)

      1. Not infrequently it can be rendered with the positive degree of an adjective rather than the comparative, expressing an absolute measure instead of a relative one:

         hízik (“to get fatter ”) → meghízik (“to get fat”) (compare also elhízik (“to get obese”))

         hosszabbít (“to make longer, lengthen”) → meghosszabbít (“to make it long”)

   3. It expresses the beginning of an action (inchoative aspect).

      szeret (“to love”) → megszeret (“to come to like, to become attached to, to become fond of”)

      lát (“to see”) → meglát (“to catch sight of”)

      tud (“to know”) → megtud (“to learn, find out”)

   4. It may express a half-perfective aspect:

      lő (“to shoot”) → meglő (“to shoot and wound”) (compare also lelő (“to shoot and kill”))

      csúszik (“to slip, slide”) → megcsúszik (“to slip but avoid falling”) (compare also elcsúszik (“to slip and fall, possibly getting injured”))

   5. It sometimes changes the meaning of the verb in other ways.

      szól (“to say something”) → megszól (“to backbite, badmouth, to say bad things about someone behind the person's back”)

Derived terms

See also

• Appendix:Hungarian verbal prefixes

References

• Hungarian verbal prefixes in the English Wikipedia