Does anyone know from whence the hyphenated suffix, -ish, derives? It seems to me always to mean "approximately" or "about" - but it suddenly occurred to me to wonder how we came to tack it onto the end of words we wished to render vague?

Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.

Hi MG

My guess is that it is the suffix -ish (as in selfish) used in a more colloquial way. Here's what the Australian Macquarie dictionary has to say:

ish
1. a suffix used to form adjectives from nouns, with the sense of: a. `belonging to' (a people, country, etc.), as in British, Danish, English, Spanish. b. `after the manner of', `having the characteristics of', `like', as in babyish, girlish, mulish (such words being now often depreciatory). c. `addicted to', `inclined or tending to', as in bookish, freakish. 2. a suffix used to form adjectives from other adjectives, with the sense of `somewhat', `rather', as in oldish, reddish, sweetish. [Middle English, from Old English -isc]

How's that? Answer your question? I love the -ish additive - use it all the time.