In other words, the noun effect really does have an associated verb form, but just as with all those noun forms of affect, the associated verb is somewhat rare. The meaning of efficere even comes through clearly in the verb effect, as in effect a change. This is why instead of having the different-sounding adfect and exfect, we have the same-sounding affect and effect.Įffect comes from the past participle effectum, which means something that has been brought about, or in other words, a result. While some of those Latin prefixes gave us nice, distinct words like infect, perfect, and defect, others, including ad and ex, changed their final consonant to assimilate to the f of facere. The rest of the phonetic similarity comes from the nature of the prefixes that combined with facere. Meanwhile, there's the noun effect, derived from the Latin verb efficere, which according to my New College Latin & English Dictionary, means "to bring about, bring to pass." Most of the phonetic similarity between afficere and efficere is due to their common origin in the Latin verb facere, meaning "make" or "do." About the only possibilities I see left are affectment and affectance, but the moment seems to have passed for creating these forms. In any case, the verb affect has had so many meanings that just about all the noun forms have been exhausted on rare, obsolete, or specialized meanings. The other is the so-called frequentative form affectare, meaning "to aim or strive for."
One is the Latin verb afficere, meaning "to affect, move, influence, impress," among other things. Part of the reason is that it actually derives from two sources. If you're thinking that affect has had a lot of meanings over the years, you're right. This time, it goes with a specialized meaning of affect: "to have an influence on someone emotionally."
What about a change in the stress, pronouncing the verb "af-FECT" and the noun "AFF-ect"? Shoot! Once again, we already have that noun, and once again, it doesn't have the meaning we want. But it doesn't cover "the act of affecting something," which is the meaning we're after. Well, then, how about affectation? That's the noun form for a meaning of affect that we still do have: to deliberately aim at something, like a British accent, or an air of amused detachment. Unfortunately, it's the noun form for a meaning of affect that we don't have anymore: to have a liking for something. For the verb affect, we could have had the noun form affection.
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