Question

What are some basic organic prefixes/suffixes?

Answer 1

Hint: Organic compounds are majorly the compounds that contain carbon and hydrogen atoms. In addition to carbon and hydrogen, some other atoms may also present such as oxygen, nitrogen, or sulphur. The nomenclature of organic compounds makes use of prefixes and suffixes to name them.

Complete answer:
Organic compounds are made up of chains of carbons and hydrogen atoms. Some other atoms or groups of atoms substitute one or more hydrogen atoms to form another set of organic compounds. The naming of organic compounds follows a very systematic IUPAC nomenclature.
It includes the complete information of an organic compound such as how many carbon atoms are present, which type of bond is present between carbon atoms, and what is the position of functional groups (if any).
Some basic prefixes and suffixes are used in the nomenclature of organic compounds. Let us start with the use of prefixes.
Prefixes are generally used to denote the length of the carbon chain and sometimes for the halogen functional groups also. Some basic prefixes are listed below:

Prefix	No. of carbon atoms
Meth-	1
Eth-	2
Prop-	3
But-	4
Pent-	5
Hex-	6

Prefix	Halogen functional group
Chloro-	Chlorine
Bromo-	Bromine
Fluoro-	Fluorine
Iodo-	Iodine

The most basic suffixes used in organic chemistry are -ane, -ene, and -yne. The suffix -ane is used when the hydrocarbon chain is saturated, that is having single bonds. Eg – ethane, propane. The suffix -ene and -yne is used to indicate the presence of a double bond and triple bond respectively. Eg – ethene, and ethyne.
Other suffixes used for functional groups are listed below:

Suffix	Functional group
-ol	Alcohol
-al	Aldehyde
-ether	Ether
-one	Ketone

Note:
Not all organic compounds use all these prefixes and suffixes in their nomenclature. The aromatic hydrocarbon compounds have several common names and are usually named as a derivative of benzene which is representative of aromatic compounds. Example – nitrobenzene, methylbenzene etc.