tondilo

This is the page the whole affix track has been pointing at. If you have been reading the word pages in order, you have been promised tondilo for about a thousand ranks. Tondi at 1,951 said it outright: "add -il-, the tool suffix, and you get tondilo - scissors ... a learner who has met tondi never has to look up scissors." Najlo at 1,948 used it as the counter-example when explaining that najl- cannot be cut. Hakilo at 2,302 listed it as its sibling. Kudri at 2,501 put it in the tailor's hand next to the needle. Four pages, four promises, and here is the word. It arrives at rank 2,778 and it should feel like nothing at all, because you already built it.

Say the derivation out loud once, with ceremony. Tondi is what a pair of blades does, closing past each other. -Il- is the suffix that names the tool an action is performed with. Tondilo is therefore the thing you shear with: scissors. It takes an -o because it is a noun, an -n when it is an object, and a -j when there are several - and note that Esperanto counts scissors as one thing, unu tondilo, where English insists on a plural and then has to say "a pair of". The Esperanto is simply more sensible.

The -il- family, which is now large. Ilo at 736 is the suffix promoted to a root of its own: a tool. Around it the course has gathered ŝlosilo at 1,026, a key, from ŝlosi; komputilo at 1,039, a computer, from komputi; veturilo at 762, a vehicle; aviadilo at 1,082, an aeroplane; fotilo at 1,711, a camera; balailo at 2,367, a broom, from balai; hakilo at 2,302, an axe; and flugilo at 1,422, a wing, which is the tool a bird flies with. Nine tools, one suffix, no exceptions. The suffix reference has the rest.

And the derivations keep going. Tondileto is a small pair of scissors, nail scissors; tondilego is shears, the garden kind; ungotondilo is nail clippers; herbotondilo is a lawnmower; tondado is shearing as an activity, which is what happens to a flock in June. Every one of those is free to a learner who has tondi, -il-, -et-, -eg- and the compounding rule - which is the argument for the whole course in a single word.