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🔹 Deadjectival Nouns Ending in -or

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The suffix -or is the only Spanish suffix that forms masculine quality nouns. Unlike -ura, -eza, or -idad, it's essentially no longer productive for forming new words from adjectives today — nearly all the surviving words are inherited from Latin or already lexicalized, with very few modern exceptions (like agrior, used in the Río de la Plata region and some parts of Spain).

#Spanish NounNoun in EnglishBase AdjectiveBase Adjective in English
1grosorthicknessgruesothick
2espesorthickness; densityespesothick; dense
3verdorgreenness; lushnessverdegreen
4dulzorsweetnessdulcesweet
5frescorfreshness; coolnessfrescofresh; cool
6amargorbitternessamargobitter
7largorlengthlargolong
8grandorgreatness; large sizegrandelarge; great
9blancorwhitenessblancowhite
10negrorblackness; darknessnegroblack
11agriorsourness; acidityagriosour; acidic
12agrorsourness; acidity (rare)agriosour; acidic
13alborwhiteness; dawnalbowhite
14altorheight (archaic)altohigh; tall
15tristorsadness (archaic/very rare)tristesad
Important morphophonological details:
  • -or often competes with -ura, with meanings that tend to diverge: amargor (physical taste) vs. amargura (abstract feeling); dulzor (physical taste, especially in Spain) vs. dulzura (abstract quality, and in Latin America also physical); frescor (physical property) vs. frescura (which can also mean 'cheekiness').
  • agrior (from agrio) is one of the few modern formations: it's used in Argentina and some regions of Spain; the older agror is little used today.
  • altor and tristor are archaic or very rarely used today.
  • Words like calor, dolor, temor, ardor, fervor, and resplandor are not included in this chart: although they end in -or, they aren't formed from a modern Spanish adjective (temor and resplandor, for instance, come from verbs: temer 'to fear', resplandecer 'to shine').
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