Compound Nouns

As I mentioned in the last entry, while in Spanish, it’s common to use of to connect two nouns, in English, we frequently use nouns as adjectives. 


For example,  instead of saying…         keys of car

we say…                                         car keys

When you put two nouns together like this, you create what is called a compound noun. But BEWARE[1]! Sometimes, a compound noun can have a totally different meaning from its two noun roots[2]. For example, a soap opera[3] is not an opera about soap BUT a television series about people’s turbulent love lives.

Compound nouns can be separated by a space (garbage can) or by a hyphen (ice-cream), or not separated at all (haircut). There’s no rule for knowing how to separate, or not, compound nouns. Tough luck![4]

See if you can form some common compound nouns by matching a word from each box. You’ll find the answers in the comments below.

1	baby	11	kid		a	attack	k	pack
2	back	12	knife		b	box	l	pocket
3	bomb	13	lamp		c	bridge	m	point
4	boot	14	lap[5]		d	cake	n	pot
5	break	15	mail		e	dog	o	scare
6	draw	16	pan		f	driver	p	shade
7	flower	17	pick		g	fast	q	sickness
8	heart	18	screw		h	fish	r	sitter
9	home	19	sleep		i	leg	s	top
10	hot	20	star		j	napping[6]	t	walker

How did you do? It’s not so complicated, is it? This is just a small sample. Next time, instead of using “of” to connect two nouns, use a compound noun instead!

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[1] tener cuidado, [2] origen, [3] culebrón, [4] mala suerte, [5] regazo, [6] hacer una siesta