dys-

prefix

1

: abnormal

dysplasia

2

: difficult

dysphagia

compare eu-

3

: impaired

dysfunction

4

: bad

dyslogistic

compare eu-

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Greek, prefix denoting ill or evil quality, impaired function or difficulty in performance of the following element, going back to Indo-European *dus-, whence also Germanic *tuz- (in Old English torcyrre "hard to convert," torbegīete "difficult to obtain," Old High German zurwāri "suspicious," Old Norse torfengr "hard to get," Gothic tuzwerjan "to doubt"), Old Irish do-, du- (as in dochla "inglorious"), Armenian t- (in t-gēt "unknowing, ignorant"), Sanskrit duṣ-, dur-, Avestan duš-. The meaning of the Greek prefix is aptly characterized in Liddell and Scott's dictionary as "destroying the good sense of a word, or increasing its bad sense." In West Germanic the outcomes of *tuz- have blended in a complicated way with other prefixes—see note at dis-.