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Word-formation is the branch of lexicology that studies the derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language builds new words. It is a certain principle of classification of lexicon and one of the main ways of enriching the vocabulary.

Most English vocabulary arises by making new lexemes out of old ones — either by adding an affix to previously existing forms, altering their word class, or combining them to produce compounds. Like any other linguistic phenomenon word-formation may be studied from two angles — synchronically and diachronically: synchronically we investigate the existing system of the types of word-formation while diachronically we are concerned with the history of word-formation. There are cases in the history of the English language when a structurally more complex word served as the original element from which a simpler word was derived. Those are cases of the process called back-formation or disaffixation. Compare: beggar — to beg, editor — to edit, teacher — to teach, singer — to sing, crashlanding — to crashland, brainstorming — to brainstorm, burglar — to burgle, legislator — to legislate, a diplomat — to diplome.

In Modern English lots of compounds have been coined in such a way, for example: to vacuumclean, to housewarm, to stagemanage. The fact that historically the verbs to beg, to edit, etc. were derived from the corresponding agent-nouns is of no synchronous relevance. While analyzing and describing word-formation synchronically it is necessary to determine the position of these patterns and their constituents within the structural-semantic system of the language as a whole.