A word or expression to describe the set of words that are all related by a common root?


For example, the English words just (adj.), justify (verb), justification (noun), and justly (adverb) are all clearly a part of the same "family" although they each will have a separate dictionary entry because they are each different parts of speech.


How would I describe this "family" of words? I want to say...


The word just is a __________ of justification.


OR


I always thought cognate was the correct word as you can tell from my ELU thread answer here: Technical term for a noun version of an adjective. But, apparently, the word applies to the case where you are comparing words from different languages. If so, what is the best term for words from the same language?



Answer



I think you are looking for the expression word family:





  • A word family is the base form of a word plus its inflected forms and derived forms made from affixes. In the English language, inflectional affixes include third person -s, verbal -ed and -ing, plural -s, possessive -s, comparative -er and superlative -est. Derivational affixes include -able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-, -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize/-ise, -ment, in-.




  • The idea is that a base word and its inflected forms support the same core meaning, and can be considered learned words if a learner knows both the base word and the affix. Bauer and Nation proposed seven levels of affixes.





(Wikipedia)



  • Just and justification belong to the same word family. Just is actually the root word of that word family.


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