any of the minimal grammatical units of a language, each constituting a word or meaningful part of a word, that cannot be divided into smaller independent grammatical parts, as the, write, or the -ed of waited.
(linguistics) a speech element having a meaning or grammatical function that cannot be subdivided into further such elements
Derived Forms
morphemic, adjective morphemically, adverb
Word Origin
C20: from French, from Greek morphē form, coined on the model of phoneme; see -eme
Word Origin and History for morpheme
n.
"part of a word which contains the affixes," 1896, from German morpheme, coined 1895 by Polish-born linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845–1929), from Greek morphe "form, shape" (see Morpheus), on analogy of phonème.