Definition:
Two or more nouns combined to form a single noun. Compound nouns are written as separate words (grapefruit juice), as words linked by a hyphen (sister-in-law), or as one word (schoolteacher). See also: Compounding.
Examples and Observations:
- "The shutters were over the windows, so the little house could not see them go. It stayed there inside the log fence, behind the two big oak trees that in the summertime had made green roofs for Mary and Laura to play under."
(Laura I. Wilder) - "Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium."
(Booth Tarkington) - "The health care system is really designed to reward you for being unhealthy. If you are a healthy person and work hard to be healthy, there are no benefits."
(Mike Huckabee) - "The compound noun structure is extremely varied in the types of meaning relations it can indicate. It can be used to indicate what someone does (language teacher), what something is for (waste-paper basket, grindstone), what the qualities of something are (whiteboard), how something works (immersion heater), when something happens (night frost), where something is (doormat), what something is made of (woodpile), and so on."
(Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press, 2006) - "Human service is the highest form of self-interest for the person who serves."
(Elbert Hubbard) - The whole idea started with a parent who wanted to do a fundraiser for the snowboarding team at Nevada Union.
