Learn English – Any word followed by “proof” means that something is protected against that word

prefixessuffixes

I was wondering if you combine any word and add "proof" at the and, does that automatically means that it is protected against the first word?

For example:
Bulletproof – means something that can't be pierced by a bullet

But if I say:
Catproof or Appleproof does that mean something that is protected against cats or apples?

Thank you

Best Answer

Yes, this is the normal way that compound words are formed. The second meaning of proof as defined by the online Merriam-Webster is

designed or made to prevent or protect against something harmful

So, yes, if you were to coin appleproof it would indeed be understood as something that is safe from apples. The only exception I know of is are numbers. Because of another meaning of the word proof, hundredproof would not mean "safe from hundreds" but 50% alcohol. From the same source:

b : strength with reference to the standard for proof spirit; specifically : alcoholic strength indicated by a number that is twice the percent by volume of alcohol present

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Learn English – How does the “be-” prefix change the words to which it is applied? How did it come about

The formation of verbs in many Indo-European languages follows the following rule

prefix + root verb

Examples

English incoming, outgoing
German einkommen (income), ausgehend (outgoing)
Latin inīre (to come in), exīre (to go out)

German for instance still follows this system very closely and has a small number of ubiquitous prefixes which fall into two categories:

The so called separable¹ prefixes (ab- "off", an- "on", auf- "up", aus- "out", ein- "in" etc.), which indicate an ongoing action, a movement or a direction.
And the so called inseparable¹ prefixes: (be- (be), ent-, er-, ge-, mis-, ver- and zer-) which indicate a completed action (differentiated according to the type of outcome: neutral, successful, failed...).

The English be- prefix is clearly the same as the German be- and is therefore a remnant of its Germanic ascendancy.

It is actually of the same origin as the verb to be which linguists have traced back, through Proto Germanic to the reconstituted Proto Indo European root *bheu-, *bhu- meaning "to grow", "to turn into" or " to become"².

Ultimately most of the English words starting with a "be-" can be traced back to this notion of "to turn into"³.

The general form is:
be + [quality]
and the corresponding meaning is:
to turn into + [quality].

Let's illustrate all this theory with a few simple examples:

to befriend somebody => to turn somebody into a friend.
to beget something => to make something supplied, produced.
to besot somebody (besotted) => to turn somebody into a sot (a dummy).
to bewitch somebody => to make somebody possessed by a spell.
to bedazzle somebody => to make him confused (see also bewilder)

These ones are slightly more difficult:

to behold: the original meaning of to hold (OE healdan, German halten) is to keep. But to keep by actually keeping an eye on, to watch over. => So to behold is to make something watched.
to bedevil someone => to make someone feel like in Hell.
to believe something => to make something dear (loved). See also German glauben (ge + lieben) as well as Dutch geloven.
to belong to someone => to make something go along with somebody.

As usual there are a few exceptions or look-alikes that don't fit into the template

to behead => sometimes the "be" is categorised as privative but you can also interpret it as "turn into a head (and not much else)". The question being what do you sever: the head or the body ?
between. It is not a verb. The "be" is akin to "by" and the "tween" part is akin to "two".

But their existence is not sufficient to belie the general theory outlined above.

Note 1:
^{German verbs starting with a separable prefix form their past participle by inserting a "ge-" between the prefix and the root.
For instance:

Infinitve aus-gehen "to go out" => past participle aus-ge-gangen "gone out".}
^{The meaning of "ge-" in this role is actually the same as the meaning of "ge-" taken as an inseparable prefix: it indicates that an action is complete.

Inseparable prefixes already have the meaning of a completed action. Therefore the past participle form of the verbs starting with this kind of prefixes does not need an additional "ge-".}
Note 2: ^{The Proto Indo European root *bheu-, *bhu- also enters into the composition of the German equivalent of to be:

- ich bin "I am" and

- du bist "you are".}
Note 3:
^{In German the past participle of the verb kennen (to know) is gekannt (known) but it has a close relative in bekannt, which also means "known".

However, bekannt is the past participle of "bekennen" which means "to confess, to acknowledge" - that is to say "to turn into a known thing" whereas the simple un-prefixed kennen verb means "to known".

In English, there used to be a similar word beknown and we still use unbeknownst (see German unbekannt - credits @OregonGhost's comment).}

Learn English – Difference between “pangalactic” and “transgalactic”

I think that all the three words can do well for a video-game, but FWIW here are the slight differences:

pangalactic = involving/encompassing all the galaxies
inter-galactic = between galaxies
trans-galactic = across galaxies

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Learn English – How does the “be-” prefix change the words to which it is applied? How did it come about

Learn English – Difference between “pangalactic” and “transgalactic”

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