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A
compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...
is a word composed of more than one
free morpheme In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression; a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound form, ...
. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the
word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
es or the
semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...
relationship of their components.


History

English inherits the ability to form compounds from its parent the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
and expands on it. Close to two-thirds of the words in the
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
poem
Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...
are found to be compounds. Of all the types of word-formation in English, compounding is said to be the most productive.


Compound nouns

Most English compound
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s are
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s (i.e. nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s or
noun adjunct In grammar, a noun adjunct, attributive noun, qualifying noun, noun (pre)modifier, or apposite noun is an optional noun that modifies another noun; functioning similarly to an adjective, it is, more specifically, a noun functioning as a pre-modif ...
s. Due to the English tendency toward conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed
recursively Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...
by combining two words at a time. Combining "science" and "fiction", and then combining the resulting compound with "writer", for example, can construct the compound " science-fiction writer". Some compounds, such as ''
salt and pepper Salt and pepper is the common name for edible salt and ground black pepper, which are ubiquitously paired on Western dining tables as to allow for the additional seasoning of food after its preparation. During food preparation or cooking, they ...
'' or ''
mother-of-pearl Nacre ( , ), also known as mother of pearl, is an organicinorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent. Nacre is ...
'', cannot be constructed in this way, however.


Types of compound nouns

Since English is a mostly
analytic language In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of ''helper'' words (particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections (changing the f ...
, unlike most other
Germanic language The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engl ...
s, it creates compounds by concatenating words without
case marker In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word, phrase, or sentence. Most characteristically, markers occur as clitics or inflectional affixes. In analytic languages and agglutinative ...
s. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains spaces. Short compounds may be written in three different ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, though: *The "solid" or "closed" forms in which two usually moderately short words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short (
monosyllabic In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...
) units that often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are ''
housewife A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying a ...
'', ''
lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...
'', ''
wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so ...
'', ''
basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
''. *The ''hyphenated'' form in which two or more words are connected by a
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...
. Compounds that contain
affix In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ar ...
es, such as ''house-build(er)'' and ''single-mind(ed)(ness)'', as well as adjective–adjective compounds and verb–verb compounds, such as ''blue-green'' and ''freeze-dried'', are often hyphenated. Compounds that contain articles,
prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
or conjunctions, such as ''rent-a-cop'', ''mother-of-pearl'' and ''salt-and-pepper'', are also often hyphenated. *The ''open'' or ''spaced'' form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer words, such as ''
distance learning Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
'', ''
player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern i ...
'', ''
ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as s ...
''. Usage in the US and in the UK differs and often depends on the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore, open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same compound noun, such as the triplets ''
container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...
''/''container-ship''/''containership'' and ''particle board''/''particle-board''/''
particleboard Particle board, also known as chipboard or low-density fiberboard, is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. Particle board is often confused with ori ...
''. In addition to this native English compounding, there is the '' neo-classical'' type, which consists of words derived from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, as ''
horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
'', and those of
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
origin, such as ''
photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed i ...
'', the components of which are in bound form (connected by connecting vowels, which are most often ''-i-'' and ''-o-'' in Latin and Greek respectively) and cannot stand alone.


Analyzability (transparency)

In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a
specialization Specialization or Specialized may refer to: Academia * Academic specialization, may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field in which a specialist practices * Specialty (medicine), a branch of medical ...
of the meaning of its head. The
modifier Modifier may refer to: * Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning ** Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun ** Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an a ...
limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in descriptive compounds (known as '' karmadharaya'' compounds in the Sanskrit tradition), in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A ''
blackboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...
'' is a particular kind of board, which is (generally) black, for instance. In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a ''
footstool A footstool (foot stool, footrest, foot rest) is a piece of furniture or a support used to elevate the foot. There are two main types of footstool, which can be loosely categorized into those designed for comfort and those designed for funct ...
'' is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a ''stool for one's foot or feet''. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose.) In a similar manner, an ''
office manager Office management is a profession involving the design, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance of the process of work within an office or other organization, in order to sustain and improve efficiency and productivity. Office management is ...
'' is the manager of an office, an '' armchair'' is a ''chair with arms'', and a ''
raincoat A raincoat is a waterproof or water-resistant garment worn on the upper body to shield the wearer from rain. The term rain jacket is sometimes used to refer to raincoats with long sleeves that are waist-length. A rain jacket may be combined with ...
'' is a ''coat against the rain''. These relationships, which are expressed by
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s in English, would be expressed by
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal ...
in other languages. (Compounds of this type are known as ''
tatpurusha Sanskrit inherits from its parent, the Proto-Indo-European language, the capability of forming compound nouns, also widely seen in kindred languages, especially German, Greek, and also English. However, Sanskrit, especially in the later stages o ...
'' in the Sanskrit tradition.) Both of the above types of compounds are called
endocentric In theoretical linguistics, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A grammatical construction (for instance, a phrase or compound) is said to be ''endocentric'' if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one ...
compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itself—a blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a
footstool A footstool (foot stool, footrest, foot rest) is a piece of furniture or a support used to elevate the foot. There are two main types of footstool, which can be loosely categorized into those designed for comfort and those designed for funct ...
is a type of stool. However, in another common type of compound, the
exocentric In theoretical linguistics, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A grammatical construction (for instance, a phrase or compound) is said to be ''endocentric'' if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one of ...
(known as a
bahuvrihi A ''bahuvrihi'' compound (from sa, बहुव्रीहि, tr=bahuvrīhi, lit=much rice/having much rice, originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich) is a type of compound word that denotes ...
compound in the Sanskrit tradition), the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A ''
redhead Red hair (also known as orange hair and ginger hair) is a hair color found in one to two percent of the human population, appearing with greater frequency (two to six percent) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and ...
'', for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person ''with'' red hair. Similarly, a '' blockhead'' is also not a head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And a '' lionheart'' is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.). There is a general way to tell the two apart. In a compound " . Y: * Can one substitute Y with a noun that ''is'' a Y, or a verb that ''does'' Y? This is an endocentric compound. * Can one substitute Y with a noun that is ''with'' Y? This is an exocentric compound. Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A ''V-8 car'' is a car ''with'' a
V-8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...
rather than a car that ''is'' a V-8, and a ''twenty-five-dollar car'' is a car ''with'' a worth of $25, not a car that ''is'' $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
al morpheme is added, such as ''-ed'': a ''two-legged'' person is a person ''with'' two legs, and this is exocentric. On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes ''
-ing ''-ing'' is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words like ''morn ...
'' or ''-er/or''. A '' people-carrier'' is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that ''is'' a carrier of people. The related adjective, ''car-carrying'', is also endocentric: it refers to an object which ''is'' a carrying-thing (or equivalently, which ''does'' carry). These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. ''Coordinative'', '' copulative'' or ''
dvandva A dvandva ('pair' in Sanskrit) is a linguistic compound in which multiple individual nouns are concatenated to form an agglomerated compound word in which the conjunction has been elided to form a new word with a distinct semantic field. For ins ...
'' compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a
generalization A generalization is a form of abstraction whereby common properties of specific instances are formulated as general concepts or claims. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common character ...
instead of a specialization. ''
Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...
'', for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a ''
fighter-bomber A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, ...
'' is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. ''Iterative'' or ''amredita'' compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. ''Day by day'' and ''
go-go Go-go is a subgenre of funk music with an emphasis on specific rhythmic patterns, and live audience call and response. Go-go was originated by African-American musicians in the Washington, D.C. area during the mid-60s to late-70s. Go-go has li ...
'' are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head. Analyzability may be further limited by
cranberry morpheme In linguistic morphology a cranberry morpheme (also called unique morpheme or fossilized term) is a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned an ''independent'' meaning and grammatical function, but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word ...
s and semantic changes. For instance, the word ''butterfly'', commonly thought to be a metathesis for ''flutter by'', which the bugs do, is actually based on an old wives' tale that butterflies are small
witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
es that steal
butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
from
window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...
s. ''Cranberry'' is a part translation from Low German, which is why we cannot recognize the element ''cran'' (from the Low German ''kraan'' or ''kroon'', "crane"). The ''
ladybird Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...
'' or ''ladybug'' was named after the Christian expression "our ''Lady'', the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...
". In the case of verb+noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject or the
object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
of the verb. In ''playboy'', for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (''the boy plays''), whereas it is the object in ''callgirl'' (''someone calls the girl'').


Sound patterns

Stress patterns may distinguish a compound word from a noun phrase consisting of the same component words. For example, a ''black board,'' adjective plus noun, is any board that is black, and has equal stress on both elements. The compound ''blackboard'', on the other hand, though it may have started out historically as ''black board'', now is stressed on only the first element, ''black''. Thus a compound such as ''the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800 ...
'' normally has a falling intonation which a phrase such as ''a white house'' does not.


Compound modifiers

English compound modifiers are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. '' Blackboard Jungle'', ''leftover ingredients'', ''
gunmetal Gun metal, also known as red brass in the United States, is a type of bronze; an alloy of copper, tin and zinc. Proportions vary but 88% copper, 8–10% tin, and 2–4% zinc is an approximation. Originally used chiefly for making guns, it has la ...
sheen'', and '' green monkey disease'' are only a few examples. A compound modifier is a sequence of modifiers of a noun that function as a single unit. It consists of two or more words (adjectives, gerunds, or nouns) of which the left-hand component modifies the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress": ''dark'' modifies the ''green'' that modifies ''dress''.


Solid compound modifiers

There are some well-established permanent compound modifiers that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: ''earsplitting'', ''eyecatching'', and ''
downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...
''. However, in British usage, these, apart from ''downtown'', are more likely written with a hyphen: ''ear-splitting'', ''eye-catching''. Other solid compound modifiers are for example: *Numbers that are spelled out and have the
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...
''-fold'' added: "fifteenfold", "sixfold". *
Points of the compass The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
: ''
northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
'', ''northwestern'', ''northwesterly'', ''northwestwards''. In British usage, the hyphenated and open versions are more common: ''north-western'', ''north-westerly'', ''north west'', ''north-westwards''.


Hyphenated compound modifiers

Major style guides advise consulting a dictionary to determine whether a compound modifier should be hyphenated; the dictionary's hyphenation should be followed even when the compound modifier follows a noun (that is, regardless of whether in attributive or predicative position), because they are permanent compounds (whereas the general rule with temporary compounds is that hyphens are omitted in the predicative position because they are used only when necessary to prevent misreading, which is usually only in the attributive position, and even there, only on a case-by-case basis). Generally, a compound modifier is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound modifier from two adjacent modifiers that modify the noun independently. Compare the following examples: * "small appliance industry": a small industry producing appliances * "small-appliance industry": an industry producing small appliances The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization makes grouping clear: * "old English scholar": an old person who is English and a
scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
, or an old scholar who studies
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
* "Old English scholar": a scholar of
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
. * "''
De facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' proceedings" (not "''de-facto''") If, however, there is no risk of ambiguities, it may be written without a hyphen: ''Sunday morning walk'' (a "walk on Sunday morning" is practically the same as a "morning walk on Sunday"). Hyphenated compound modifiers may have been formed originally by an adjective preceding a noun, when this phrase in turn precedes another noun: * "Round table" → " round-table discussion" * "Blue sky" → " blue-sky law" * "Red light" → "
red-light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...
" * "Four wheels" → "
four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...
" (historically, the
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
or
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...
is used, not the
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This d ...
) Others may have originated with a verb preceding an adjective or adverb: * "Feel good" → "feel-good factor" * "Buy now, pay later" → "buy-now pay-later purchase" Yet others are created with an original verb preceding a
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
. * "Stick on" → "stick-on label" * "Walk on" → "walk-on part" * "Stand by" → "stand-by fare" * "Roll on, roll off" → "roll-on roll-off
ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water ta ...
" The following compound modifiers are ''always'' hyphenated when they are not written as one word: * An adjective preceding a noun to which -''d'' or -''ed'' has been added as a past-participle construction, used before a noun: ** "loud-mouthed
hooligan Hooliganism is disruptive or unlawful behavior such as rioting, bullying and vandalism, usually in connection with crowds at sporting events. Etymology There are several theories regarding the origin of the word ''hooliganism,'' which is a d ...
" ** "
middle-age In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
d lady" ** " rose-tinted glasses" * A noun, adjective, or adverb preceding a
present participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
: ** "an awe-inspiring personality" ** "a long-lasting affair" ** "a far-reaching decision" * Numbers, whether or not spelled out, that precede a noun: ** " seven-year itch" ** "five-sided
polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two to ...
" ** " 20th-century poem" ** "30-piece band" ** "tenth-
storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...
window" ** "a 20-year-old man" (as a compound modifier) and "the 20-year-old" (as a compound noun)—but "a man, who is 20 years old" * A numeral with the affix ''-fold'' has a hyphen (''15-fold''), but when spelled out takes a solid construction (''fifteenfold''). * Numbers, spelled out or not, with added ''-odd'': ''sixteen-odd'', ''70-odd''. * Compound modifiers with ''high-'' or ''low-'': "high-level discussion", "low-price markup". * Colours in compounds: ** "a dark-blue sweater" ** "a reddish-orange dress". * Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "two-thirds majority", but if
numerator A fraction (from la, fractus, "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight ...
or
denominator A fraction (from la, fractus, "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight ...
are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate two thirds of the pie.") * Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens: ** "the highest-placed competitor" ** "a shorter-term loan" * However, a construction with ''most'' is not hyphenated: ** "the most respected member". * Compounds including two geographical modifiers: :* "
Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The '' Oxford Englis ...
" : But not :* "
Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. C ...
n", which refers to people from a specific geographical region :* "
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...
", as a hyphen is seen to disparage minority populations as a hyphenated ethnicity The following compound modifiers are not normally hyphenated: * Compound modifiers that are not hyphenated in the relevant dictionary or that are unambiguous without a hyphen. * Where there is no risk of ambiguity: ** "a Sunday morning walk" * Left-hand components of a compound modifier that end in ''-ly'' and that modify right-hand components that are past participles (ending in -''ed''): ** "a hotly disputed subject" ** "a greatly improved scheme" ** "a distantly related celebrity" * Compound modifiers that include comparatives and
superlative Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages t ...
s with ''more'', ''most'', ''less'' or ''least'': ** "a more recent development" ** "the most respected member" ** "a less opportune moment" ** "the least expected event" * Ordinarily hyphenated compounds with intensive adverbs in front of adjectives: ** "very much admired
classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
" ** "really well accepted proposal"


Using a group of compound nouns containing the same "head"

Special rules apply when multiple compound nouns with the same "head" are used together, often with a conjunction (and with hyphens and commas if they are needed). * The third- and fourth-grade teachers met with the parents. * Both full- and part-time employees will get raises this year. * We don't see many 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children around here.


Compound verbs

A compound verb is usually composed of an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...
and a
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
, although other combinations also exist. The term ''compound verb'' was first used in publication in Grattan and Gurrey's ''Our Living Language'' (1925). Some compound verbs are difficult to analyze morphologically because several derivations are plausible. ''
Blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
'', for instance, might be analyzed as an adjective+verb compound, or as an adjective+noun compound that becomes a verb through zero derivation. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may supersede the original, emergent sense. Therefore, sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to the original contributors. Compound verbs composed of a noun and verb are comparatively rare, and the noun is generally not the
direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
of the verb. Examples of compound verbs following the pattern of indirect-object+verb include "''hand wash''" (e.g. "''you wash it by hand''" ~> "''you handwash it''"), and "''breastfeed''" (e.g. "''she feeds the baby with/by/from her breast''" ~> "''she breastfeeds the baby''"). Examples of non-existent direct-object+verb compound verbs would be *"''bread-bake''" (e.g. "''they bake bread''" ~> *"''they bread-bake''") and *"''car-drive''" (e.g. "''they drive a car''" ~> *"''they car-drive''"). Note the example of a compound like "''foxhunt''": although this matches the direct-object+verb pattern, it is ''not'' grammatically ''used'' in a sentence as a verb, but rather as a noun (e.g. "''they're hunting foxes tomorrow''" ~> "''they're going on a foxhunt tomorrow''", but "''not''" *"''they're foxhunting tomorrow''").


Hyphenation

Compound verbs with single-syllable modifiers are often solid, or un
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. ''Son-in-law'' is an example of a hyphenated word. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes ( figure ...
ated. Those with longer modifiers may originally be hyphenated, but as they became established, they became solid, e.g. *overhang (English origin) *counterattack (Latin origin) There was a tendency in the 18th century to use hyphens excessively, that is, to hyphenate all previously established solid compound verbs.
American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...
, however, has diminished the use of hyphens, while
British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly ...
is more conservative.


Phrasal verbs

English
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...
distinguishes between
phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
s and
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...
ial adjuncts. Consider the following sentences: : ''I held up my hand'' implies that I raised my hand. : ''I held up the negotiations'' implies that I delayed the negotiations. : ''I held up the bank to the highest standard'' implies that I demanded model behavior regarding the bank. : ''I held up the bank'' implies either (a) that I robbed the bank or (b) that I lifted upward a bank [either literally, as for a toy bank, or figuratively, as in putting a bank forward as an example of something (although usually then the sentence would end with ''... as an exemplar.'' or similar)]. Each of the foregoing sentences implies a contextually distinguishable meaning of the word, "up," but the fourth sentence may differ syntactically, depending on whether it intends meaning (a) or (b). Specifically, the first three sentences render ''held up'' as a
phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
that expresses an idiomatic, figurative, or metaphorical sense that depends on the contextual meaning of the
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
, "up." The fourth sentence, however, ambiguously renders ''up'' either as (a) a
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
that
complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class ...
s "held," or as (b) an
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering que ...
that modifies "held." The ambiguity is minimized by rewording and providing more context to the sentences under discussion: : ''I held my hand up'' implies that I raised my hand. : ''I held the negotiations up'' implies that I delayed the negotiations. : ''I held the bank up to the highest standard'' implies that I expect model behavior regarding the bank. : ''I held the bank up upstairs'' implies that I robbed the upstairs bank. : ''I held the bank up the stairs'' implies that I lifted a (toy) bank along an upstairs route. Thus, the fifth sentence renders "up" as the head word of an adverbial prepositional phrase that modifies, the verb, ''held''. The first four sentences remain phrasal verbs. The ''Oxford English Grammar'' () distinguishes seven types of phrasal verbs in English: *
intransitive In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
phrasal verbs (e.g. ''give in'') *transitive phrasal verbs (e.g. ''find out'' 'discover'' *monotransitive prepositional verbs (e.g. ''look after'' 'care for'' *doubly transitive prepositional verbs (e.g. ''blame'' omething''on'' omeone *copular prepositional verbs. (e.g. ''serve as'') *monotransitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. ''look up to'' 'respect'' *doubly transitive phrasal-prepositional verbs (e.g. ''put'' omething''down to'' omeone 'attribute to'' English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound verbs with two verbs (e.g. ''make do''). These too can take idiomatic prepositions (e.g. ''get rid of''). There are also idiomatic combinations of verb and adjective (e.g. ''come true'', ''run amok'') and verb and adverb (''make sure''), verb and fixed noun (e.g. ''go ape''); and these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. ''take place on'').


Misuses of the term

"Compound verb" is often confused with: # "verb phrase"/"verbal phrase"—Headed by a verb, many ''verbal phrases'' are multi-word but some are one-word: a verb (which could be a compound verb). # "
phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
"—A sub-type of verb phrase, which has a
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
before or after the verb, often having a more or less idiomatic meaning. # "complex verb"—A type of complex phrase: In
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, while both "compound" and "complex" contrast with "simple", they are not synonymous (''simple'' involves a single element, ''compound'' involves multiple similar elements, ''complex'' involves multiple dissimilar elements).


See also

*
Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
*
Phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
*
Portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsSyllabic abbreviations *
Morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * {{refend
Compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...