com

1 of 2

abbreviation

comedy; comic

comma

commercial organization

com-

2 of 2

prefix

variants or col- or con- or cor-

: with : together : jointly

—usually com- before b, p, or m,

commingle

col- before l,

collinear

cor- before r,

correlation

and con- before other sounds

concentrate

Word History

Etymology

Prefix

borrowed from Latin com- "with, together with, jointly" also with verbs marking the complete nature of the action, going back to dialectal Indo-European *kom-, whence also Celtic *kom- "together, with" (whence Gaulish com-, con-, nominal prefix [co- before vowel in coetic "and also"], Old Irish com-, con-, verbal and nominal prefix, co [with following nasalization] "with," Welsh cym-, cyf-, cy-, verbal and nominal prefix, Breton kev-, kem-), Germanic *ga- "together, with" (whence Old English ge-, Old High German ga-, ge-, gi-, Old Icelandic g-, Gothic ga-)

Note: Latin com- has, in addition to the above variants, the form co- before vowels, h and gn—see co-. G.E. Dunkel (Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Prominalstämme) regards Indo-European *ko without m as originally a separate particle, to which the adverbial ending *-m has been added. He also treats *kom and *som as distinct particles and hence rejects the reconstruction *ḱom with a palatovelar.