Compound Nouns: Putting Words Together

 

What do these five words have in common: hotdog, fireworks, well-being¹, waistline, sunset and ice cream? They could all describe a fun holiday celebration. For example:

My holiday was wonderful! I went to a friend’s party and we laughed, ate and had a lovely time. We grilled² hotdogs and made ice cream. Then, after sunset, we all went down to the river to watch the fireworks. It was a great time…but probably terrible for my waistline!

Great story! But what is the grammatical connection between all the words we talked about? They are all compound nouns and that is our subject today.

A compound noun is a noun made by putting two or more words together to act as one noun. These nouns can be written as one word (as in fireworks and waistline), as hyphenated words (as in well-being), or as separate words (as in ice cream).

Compound nouns often have different meanings from their separate words. For example, if you had never heard of a “hotdog,” you probably would not know its meaning just from the words “hot” and “dog.” A hotdog is a small cooked sausage usually made from beef or pork.

Making compound nouns

Compound nouns are often constructed from two parts of speech. The most common are:

noun + noun, as in ice cream, waistline and fireworks, which you heard earlier in the program

adjective + noun, as in hotdog and greenhouse.?

Greenhouses at botanical gardens carry plants from around the world.

and noun + verb, as in sunset and rainfall.?

The average yearly rainfall in Washington, DC is around 40 inches.

But, compound nouns are also formed in other ways, such as:

noun + preposition, as in passer-by?

A passer-by witnessed the car accident on 17th Street.

gerund + noun, as in swimming pool and washing machine?

I’m so glad that our hotel has a swimming pool!

adjective + verb, as in public speaking and dry cleaning

Can you call and see if the dry cleaning is ready?

verb + preposition, as in take-off and lookout³?

Flight attendants, please prepare for take-off.

and preposition + verb, as in output and overthrow⁴.?

The company increased output by extending its office hours.

Plurals⁶ and possessives

OK, moving on to plurals and possessives.

In most plural⁵ compound nouns, the -s goes at the end. But here’s a little more to know:

If the compound noun has no space or does have a space in between words, the -s usually goes at the end, such as in greenhouses, waistlines, washing machines and swimming pools.

If the compound noun has a hyphen or hyphens, the -s usually goes at the end of the noun, such as in secretaries-general, passers-by and fathers-in-law.

To make the possessive form, simply add an apostrophe -s to the end of the complete word, such as in these examples:

My daughter-in-law’s dress is being made.

The dry cleaner’s number is on the table.

How to pronounce

Lastly, let’s talk about stress. In spoken language, stress is giving greater loudness or force to part of a word. Correct stress is very important for compound nouns.

We usually stress the first syllable⁷. For instance, when I say the word “fireworks,” I put greater loudness on “fire.” If I put the stress on “works,” it changes the meaning and would confuse the listener.

Listen to more examples that stress the first syllable:

swimming pool

football

haircut

bedroom

take-off

ice cream

And, just for fun, here’s an old – but still popular – song about ice cream:

I scream

You scream

We all scream for ice cream!

Not all compound nouns follow the rule of first syllable stress. Proper nouns that are more than one word are considered compound nouns and they usually carry the stress at the start of the second word.

Listen for the stress in these proper nouns:

New Orleans

Las Vegas

Mount Rainier

Grand Canyon⁸

South Africa

New Zealand

Secretary-General

Prime Minister

By now in your English studies, you’ve already used many compound nouns. And, surely, you’ll use many more. So, practice ones that are useful to you in speaking and writing! You can use a good dictionary to check how we say and write them.

I’m Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

waistline – n. the distance around the smallest part of your waist

hyphenated – adj. connected with a hyphen punctuation⁹ mark

sausage – n. ground meat that is usually stuffed into a narrow tube of animal skin

greenhouse – n. a building that has glass walls and a glass roof and that is used for growing plants

output – n. the amount of something that is produced by a person or thing

plural – adj. relating to a form of a word that refers to more than one person or thing

possessive – adj. relating to a form of a word that shows that something or someone belongs to something or someone else

apostrophe – n. the punctuation mark' used to show the possessive form of a noun

syllable – n. any one of the parts into which a word is naturally divided when it is pronounced

proper noun – n. a word or group of words that is the name of a person, place, or thing and usually begins with a capital letter

dictionary – n. a book that lists words in alphabetical order and gives information about meanings, forms and pronunciations

1 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

2 grilled   

adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• He was grilled for two hours before the police let him go. 他被严厉盘查了两个小时后，警察才放他走。
• He was grilled until he confessed. 他被严加拷问，直到他承认为止。

3 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

4 overthrow   

v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆

参考例句：

• After the overthrow of the government,the country was in chaos.政府被推翻后，这个国家处于混乱中。
• The overthrow of his plans left him much discouraged.他的计划的失败使得他很气馁。

5 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

6 plurals   

n.复数，复数形式( plural的名词复数 )

参考例句：

7 syllable   

n.音节；vt.分音节

参考例句：

• You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
• The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。

8 canyon   

n.峡谷，溪谷

参考例句：

• The Grand Canyon in the USA is 1900 metres deep.美国的大峡谷1900米深。
• The canyon is famous for producing echoes.这个峡谷以回声而闻名。

9 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。