Unique morphemes are bound morphemes that do not have an independent meaning and have no grammatical function. However, they often occur in common words. Here is a list of ten English words with unique morphemes:
cranberry
hapless
inept
inevitable
lukewarm
mulberry
raspberry
twilight
uncouth
unkempt
The morpheme cran is actually derived from crane, but it is not obvious to English speakers. Words such as hapless and inevitable do not have antonyms such as careful/careless and active/inactive. For this reason they have the unique morphemes hap and evitable.
Morphemes can be free and bound. However, bound morphemes can also be unique. This means that they have no independent meaning and do not occur in other words.
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