The English

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

-nik is of Slavic origin. It approximately corresponds to the suffix "-er" and nearly always denotes an

agent noun In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, ''driver'' is an agent noun formed from the verb ''drive''. Usually, '' ...

(that is, it describes a person related to the thing, state, habit, or action described by the word to which the suffix is attached).V. V. Kabakchi, Charles Clay Doyle
"Of Sputniks, Beatniks, and Nogoodniks"
'' American Speech'', Vol. 65, No. 3 (1990), pp. 275-278 In the cases where a native English language coinage may occur, the "-nik"-word often bears an ironic connotation, as in the case of the terms coined for the failed rocket launch of the U.S. satellite rival to

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space progra ...

, such as ''kaputnik, dudnik'' and ''flopnik'' among others.

History

The suffix existed in English for a long time. An example is '' raskolnik'', recorded by the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' as known since 1723. There have been two main waves of the introduction of this suffix into English language. The first was driven by Yinglish words contributed by

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

speakers from

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. The second surge was observed after the launch of the first

satellite by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

on October 4, 1957. In the fourth edition of his book '' The American Language'', H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) credited the mania for adding "-nik" to the ends of adjectives to create nouns to Al Capp's American

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

'' Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977) rather than to the influence of "Sputnik", first recorded in 1957, or "beatnik", first recorded in 1958.

Vocabulary

Mainstream

Words of significant context or usage: * Beatnik * Chainik * Potatonik, Jewish potato dish * Refusenik *

Casual

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

s: * Alrightnik: one who has been successful; '' nouveau riche'', especially one who forgot his friends and origins; used as an insult *Artnik, a UK publisher (defunct); the word predates its establishment * Muttnik, the first dog in space * Neatnik: a neat-freak * Nogoodnik: a lazy, incompetent or malicious person * Peacenik: a pacifist; a hippie * Wordnik

Jewish adaptation

Words originally used by Jews of Europe, America, and Israel, often referring to concepts related to their experiences or things happening in Israel or among the Jewish people: *Chabadnik or Habadnik: follower of Chabad *Kadimanik: member of United Synagogue Youth's Kadima program * Ka-tzetnik: a Nazi concentration camp prisoner or survivor, derived from abbreviation KZ, pronounced "Ka-tzet" *Kibbutznik: member of a

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

* Lamedvavnik *Likudnik: supporter of Israeli political party Likud *Limmudnik: participant or attendee of Limmud events *Mapainik: supporter of the historical Israeli labor party Mapai *Moshavnik: member of a Moshav *Mossadnik:

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

agent *Netzernik: Member of the Netzer Olami youth movement * Nudnik: a nagging, boring or awkward person *Shinuinik: supporter of Israeli political party Shinui * Hamasnik: A member or supporter of

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

Slavic languages

Native or constructed Slavic words originating in Slavic-speaking environments: There are quite a few

proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity ('' Africa''; ''Jupiter''; '' Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

s (surnames and place names) with this suffix.

References

External links

*{{cite web , work=The Mavens' Word of the Day , title=-nik , url=http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19980601 , date=June 1, 1998 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010418091035/http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19980601 , archive-date=2001-04-18 , publisher=

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

Nik Slavic languages