Multi- is a prefix meaning “many” or “multiple.” When you see multi- at the beginning of a word, it signals that something involves more than one of whatever comes next.

A multivitamin contains many vitamins in one pill. A multilingual person speaks multiple languages. A multi-tool combines many tools into a single device, like those pocket knives with scissors, screwdrivers, and can openers folded together.

You'll find it everywhere: multicultural describes communities with many different cultures, multimedia projects use multiple forms of media like video, sound, and text, and multitasking means doing several tasks at once.

Understanding multi- helps you decode unfamiliar words. If you encounter multicolored or multistory for the first time, you can figure out they mean “having many colors” or “having multiple floors” just by recognizing the prefix.