Are there adjectival suffixes that can be appended to a noun to form an adjective having the meaning of ‘-less’ as in handless or headless or worthless?
Or are there suffixes that adjectivize a noun and have the meaning of -having or -with
The English “headless” could mean many things, such as “a trunk of a body”, “stupid”, “leaderless” etc, all of which would be expressed in Latin in different ways. There is no suffix which can be applied in the way it is in English.
Adjectives are regularly formed from nouns as in laetātiō, ōnis …joy and laetātus with joy. It is not achieved by a suffix but taking the root of the noun and adding gender endings as in laetāt- plus -us ----> laetātus.
You will find full details of how adjectives are derived from nouns here https://dcc.dickinson.edu/grammar/latin/derivation-adjectives
Don’t forget prefixes, esp. “privative” in- to negate, e.g. in-dignus “unworthy” (not “worthless”), inutilis useless, with Greek counterpart α-, e.g. αχρηστος useless, ακεφαλος acephalous, headless.
Thanks for that. Yes, it works. And I’ve found that there is in fact a suffix for ‘having’ or ‘forming’. -atus -tus.
I entered ‘incapitatus’ into Whitaker’s Words.
This is the result.
in PREFIX
not -, un-, -less;
capitat.us ADJ 1 1 NOM S M POS
capitatus, capitata, capitatum ADJ [XXXCO]
having or forming a head;
So this (from the Stele of Jeou) ’σὲ καλῶ τὸν ἀκέφαλον, could be rendered in Latin as ‘incapitatum invoco te’.
Lewis and Short give :
căpĭtātus , a, um, adj. id.,
I.having a head (rare): “clavulus,” Varr. R. R. 2, 9, 15: et crassa natrix, Lucil. ap. Non. p. 65, 31: “caepa,” Plin. 19, 6, 32, § 105: “porrum,” id. 20, 6, 22, § 48; Pall. Febr. 24, 11: “herba,” Plin. 24, 19, 113, § 173: “cunila,” id. 32, 10, 44, § 126: vinea, a vine that grows in a head (opp. bracchiata), Col. 5, 5, 9 and 11.
The usages given here all seem to point to plants. I dont think this is the word you are looking for.
Wouldn’t they just say sine capite?
Wouldn’t they just say sine capite?
Yes that might work, depending on what exactly is meant by “headless”.
There is also the direct loan word from Greek "acephalus (-os) “, which the OLD glosses as “Lacking the first syllable.” Lewis and short also cite " Without head, without chief or leader.—Subst.: Ăcĕphăli, a sect of heretics, Isid. Or. 8, 5, 66; cf. 5, 39, 39 sq” from later latin.
I think if the intention is to refer to someone who has been decapitated then we need a participle from secō. Then whoever is invoked can arrive carrying his head or not as he finds convenient. Of course if he never had a head we would need to think again. I am saying this lightheartedly and I hope not disrespectfully but it shows that one has to understand exactly what one means by “headless” before one translates into latin. I think pretty obviously that the heretical Ăcĕphăli referred to by L&S are leaderless rather than decapitated.
I looked up the Stele of Jeou and found the following (admittedly not from a scholarly source)
“It is also known as the Headless Rite because the text is directed to a deity referred to as Akephalos—Greek for “Headless One.” The term could refer to any number of obscure ancient headless deities and it is often assumed to refer to an Egyptian one, but it could refer to something else entirely.”
So in this case perhaps one just uses “acephalum” and accepts that no one really know what it refers to.
When translating one has to be very sure one understands what is to be translated and then translate that idea. If in translating from Greek to Latin, you translate literally from Greek to English and then English to Latin you are quite likely to go wrong.
That the idea is to be translated is basic information, but on a specific question, seems unhelpful (though we wouldn’t say “helpless”, meaning in need of help).
Specially here, the “-less” termination is, with limited idiomatic exceptions, an English one meaning “without,” and can be used for new coinages. For some reason Latin does not seem to make sine- compounds, though there are some historic sed- compounds with the “without” meaning? Why this is, I don’t have a clue. Maybe because an adjective is hardly an improvement on “sine + abl.”?
DOUBLE POST. 
Oh, I don’t know about that. The ‘Invocation of the Broccoli Stalk’ might be quite a hit if Graeco-Egyptian magic, cooking and cornball comedy ever form a menage a trois.
Having said that - Lewis & Short give ‘caput’ as meaning 'the head, of men and animals’, ‘the head, top, summit, point, end, extremity (beginning or end)’ among other things such as springs or heads of rivers and the summits of trees etc.
Meanwhile, the Oxford Classical Greek dictionary gives κέφαλή as meaning ‘head, end, point, source, top’.
While there is speculation that the invocation is of a specific headless deity, the next words - “(you) who created earth and heaven, who created night and day”, suggest more of a supreme deity. That suggests that ‘headless’ should have less connotation regarding lack of physical heads and more regarding lack of ends or limits.
Perhaps ‘sine capite’ is the way to go if trying to be faithful to the words but as you wisely said in another post above,
When translating one has to be very sure one understands what is to be translated and then translate that idea.
And here I was thinking this was going to be a simple question with simple answers!