In France, when someone committed a crime, the king or queen would often declare, "Off with his head!" and send the criminal to the guillotine to be decapitated.

The word decapitate doesn't sound like a pleasant word, but if you weren't sure exactly what it meant to be decapitated, you could figure it out by looking at the parts of the word. The word decapitate contains the prefix de-.

A prefix is a word or group of letters that is added to the beginning of a word. It changes the meaning of the word and clues you in to what the word means.

The prefix de- means down, off, or away from. So the word decapitate means to cut off the head.

Watch the video below to learn more words that contain the prefix de-.