Well, yes they do. But when you ask such a general question like this, it is hard to give you a proper reply.

The 'suffixes' do give a certain meaning to the words. You can compare them with the Chinese radicals. The radical 女 for example indicates a female being ,whether woman, girl ,nurse etc. (女人，女孩）,an equivalent suffix in English is 'ess' ,whenever it is attached at the end of a word (with slight modifications) ,it turns the noun into a feminine one. waiter waitress acter actress You can check the following list including the meaning and usage of many suffixes: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/suffixtext.htm However in the course of learning English, you learn the word as a whole without much minding the separate meaning of the suffix and thinking about which one to add to complete the word. It is the repetition and practice that makes you memorize the word as a whole unit. It is still a good idea to have a look at them to help you detect the meaning of some words and for a thorough study of the English grammar.

Look up there http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/suffixes.htm It might help.