-ίτης

Etymology
Back-formation from, from. The ῑ from the stem of πόλις became part of the suffix: πολῑ́-της was reanalyzed as.

Suffix

 * : one connected to, a member of; one from a particular place

Usage notes
Originally forming generic adjectives, such as from ;  from.

But by the Hellenistic period, both the masculine and the feminine  became very productive in forming technical terms for products, diseases, minerals and gems (adjectives with elliptic ), ethnic designations and Biblical tribal names. These technical uses survive in modern languages in Greek loanwords for diseases (in ), for minerals (in ) and for nations, tribes or religious sects (plurals in ), partly also in common nouns such as.