compound words

• Compound words are individual words (or phrases that act as individual words) made from two or more words working together. They can be most parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even prepositions like inside, outside, within, and without.
• Open compound words

  Open compound words have spaces in between the words, which can make them hard to identify. But despite how they look, open compound words always act like single words. They always appear together, in the same order, and they each have their own unique meanings.
• Open compound words are mostly nouns, and they’re used the same as regular nouns. If you want to make an open compound word plural, you usually pluralize only the final word in the group, not all the words.

  Incorrect: Mia got sick from eating ten hots dogs.

  Correct: Mia got sick from eating ten hot dogs.
• Closed compound words

  Compared to open compound words, closed compound words are much easier to remember and to use. There are no spaces between the words, so closed compound words both look and act like individual words.
• Examples of closed compound words:

  air port

  any body

  any where

  some where

  baby sit

  back ground

  bare foot

  base ball
• Hyphenated compound words

  Last are hyphenated compound words, which have hyphens between the words. These can be tricky to spell if you’re unsure whether there’s a hyphen or a space, so it’s best to familiarize yourself with a compound word list to help you learn the individual spellings. Otherwise you can quickly look up the correct spelling with a spell checker.
• When hyphenated compound words are nouns, it’s important that you pluralize the right part. Unlike with open compound words, you don’t always pluralize the final word in the group. For example, with the hyphenated compound word mother-in-law, you pluralize mother instead of law.
• Examples:

  Incorrect:

  Some spouses don’t like their mother-in-laws, but I get along with mine.

  Correct:

  Some spouses don’t like their mothers-in-law, but I get along with mine.
• Some other examples:

  check-in

  clean-cut

  editor-in-chief

  empty-handed

  far-fetched

  father-in-law

  mother-in-law

  sister-in-law

  free-for-all

  know-how