malign
A Word with Latin Root, Prefix or Suffix
malign
to speak evil of someone; defame someone; slander; traduce
vt. 诽谤, 说坏话; adj. 有害的, 恶性的, 有恶意的
Note: malign can be used as an adjective or a verb; benign can be used as an adjective only.
Dissection of malign
malign = mal- (ill, bad) + i + gn (=base of genus, born, origin, produce);
malign = bad origin, to produce something bad
malign = extended further to mean to say bad words about someone or have evil disposition toward someone
malign = to speak evil about some one
Important roots for this word:
mal-
Note: You may sometimes find that a vowel such as o is often inserted between two roots, as o inserted between phon and graph in phonograph = phon + o + graph, the reason is for easy pronounciation. Another example is archaeology = archae + o + logy