Cranberry Morphemes
A cranberry morpheme or unique morpheme is one with extremely limited distribution so that it occurs in only one word. A popular example is cran- in cranberry" (hence the term "cranberry morpheme").
Unique morphemes are examples of the linguistic notion of fossilization: loss of productivity or usage of grammar units: words, phrases, parts of words. Besides fossilized root morphemes, there are also fossilized affixes (suffixes and prefixes).
Read more about this topic: Free Morpheme
Famous quotes containing the word cranberry:
““Bunches of grapes,” says Timothy;
“Pomegranates pink,” says Elaine;
“A junket of cream and a cranberry tart.””
—Walter De La Mare (1873–1956)