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-acea, -aceae

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  • Is this related to botany?
    – Michael Harvey
    May 16 at 10:28
  • yes, in case of '-aceae', but zoology in case of '-acea'
    – BEBYGONES
    May 16 at 10:32
  • I just spent a couple of minutes searching the full OED, but I can't find even a single word there that ends with -aceae. Etymonline says In botany, the suffix is -aceae, from the fem. plural of -aceus, forming orders or families of plants (Rosaceae, etc.) But the OED only has rosacea, which is a completely different word.
    – FumbleFingers
    May 16 at 11:52
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    These are not native suffixes, but rather derived from Greek or Latin. Moreover, they are used within technical terms in specialized fields. How they are actually pronounced by specialists in the field is probably best answered by the specialists themselves or by a technical dictionary.
    – Jeff Morrow
    May 16 at 12:43
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    Whilst this question has its faults, it shows no research effort and asks about pronunciation which we don't do here "Basic questions on spelling, meaning or pronunciation are off-topic as they should be answered using a dictionary." It's worth pointing out that none of our regular contributors can find satisfactory answers in their dictionary research. Hence I'm voting to leave this open for now in case someone can provide an authoritative answer.
    – Peter Jennings
    May 23 at 9:53

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