morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language. Morphemes are not necessarily the same as either words or syllables. The word cat has one morpheme while the word cats has two morphemes: cat for the animal and s to indicate that there is more than one. Similarly, like has one morpheme while dislike has two: like to describe appreciation and dis to indicate the opposite. The process of identifying morphemes assists comprehension, vocabulary building and spelling.