-il

suffix (also -ile) forming adjectives or nouns denoting relation (civil; utensil) or capability (agile; sessile).
Etymology: OF f. L -ilis

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\\əl, ^əl, (|)il\ noun suffix also -ile \\“, |ēl, |īl\ (-s)

Etymology: German -il & French -ile, probably from French -ile & Latin -ilis -ile, adjective suffix

: substance related to (something specified)

benzil

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var. of -ile: civil.

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suffix forming adjectives and nouns such as civil and fossil

Origin:

from Old French, from Latin -ilis

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-il, -ile, suffix

the Eng. representatiaves of L. -ilis and -īlis, forming adjectives, sometimes also substantives, as in fossilis fossil, civīlis civil; agilis agile, juvenīlis juvenile. These suffixes are in origin the same, viz. -lis with connective -i-, which with -i- stems as cīvi-s, hosti-s, and in some other words, gave -īlis. In OF., the latter came down as -il, e.g. Aprīl-em, Avril, April; the former regularly lost the post-tonic ĭ, and became -le (for -l'), as in humil-em humble, habil-em able, fragil-em, fraisle, fraile, frêle frail, gracil-em, graisle, gresle, grêle. L. words adapted in OF. at an early date took the ending -il masc., -ile fem., e.g. civil, civile; later words have the ending -ile only, as agile, facile, fossile. Very few of these words in Eng. have the suffix in -il, e.g. civil, fossil, utensil; in the 17th c. we find occasionally -il for L. -ilis, e.g. difficil, docil, fertil, steril; but modern usage in Eng. as in French has levelled -ilis and -īlis under the common form -ile. In Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary -ile from -īlis is pronounced (-aɪl), and -ile from -ilis as (-il); but the more recent tendency is to extend (aɪl), with some exceptions, to all the words.

2. Following cl.L. and med.L. ordinal numerals of the type quartīlis, quintīlis, sextīlis (Eng. quartile, etc.), -ile (-aɪl) is used in Statistics to form substantives denoting (a) those values of a variate that divide a population into the indicated number of groups, equal in size, and (b) the groups themselves; so octile and quartile (1879), decile (1882), percentile (1885).