Compound Nouns
Most English compound nouns are noun phrases (= nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjectives or attributive nouns. Due to the English tendency towards conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively 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 or mother-of-pearl, cannot be constructed in this way, however.
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Famous quotes containing the words compound and/or nouns:
“Work is a responsibility most adults assume, a burden at times, a complication, but also a challenge that, like children, requires enormous energy and that holds the potential for qualitative, as well as quantitative, rewards. Isn’t this the only constructive perspective for women who have no choice but to work? And isn’t it a more healthy attitude for women writhing with guilt because they choose to compound the challenges of motherhood with work they enjoy?”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)