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What do you call words that look like a negation but are not?
I found these poor orphaned words that only exist through the life-giving quality of their affix:
feckless, ruthless, unruly, inept, dishevelled, dismayed, disgruntled
I'm sure there are more. They have the familiar appearance of antonyms... Antonyms to something that doesn't exist. It's as if they've lost their positive attitude.
Do these words have a common name?
How did they get this way? They all have standard english affixes with known meaning, so it seems like they should be able to stand on their own. Were the original words lost?
Is there a list of these recognized words somewhere?
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