poly-

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poly-

/ˈpɒl.i-/ UK
/ˈpɑ.li-/ Atlantic Canada, US
/ˈpɒl.i-/ Boston, Canada, Maine
/ˈpɔl.i-/ Australia
/ˈpɒl.i-/ New Zealand
[ˈpɔ̟l.i-] New Zealand
/pəˈlɪ-/ Australia, Canada, US
/pəˈlə-/ New Zealand

Where it comes from

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek πολύς (polús, “many, much”), from Proto-Indo-European *polh₁ús (“much, many”). Unrelated to -poly.

prefix

morpheme many polydactyl, polyglot, polyvalent
Similar: multi-, pleo-, pleio- · Opposite: mono-, uni-
morpheme polymer polyacetal, polyethene, polyether
morpheme polyamory polycule, polyphobia, polyfamily

Translations

Every language

prefix many

Español	poli-
한국어	다 da
日本語	多 ta-, 重 jū-
中文	聚 jù, 多 duō
हिन्दी	बहु- bahu-
Português	poli-
Français	poly-
Deutsch	poly-
Italiano	poli-
Ελληνικά	πολυ- poly-
Русский	поли- poli-

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"poly-." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/poly-. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

poly-. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/poly-

Chicago

"poly-." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/poly-.

BibTeX

@misc{poly_2026,
  title = {poly-},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/poly-},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}