Compound words

What is a compound word? Two or more words joined to make a new word with its own meaning.

English writes compounds in three ways, and the story uses all three:

• Closed (one word): sunlight, courtroom, household, bookstore.
• Hyphenated (with a hyphen): well-planned, quick-witted, soft-spoken, ill-tempered. Most of these describe a person or thing.
• Open (two separate words, one meaning): paddy seeds, common sense, dance hall, sky blue.

Which way is a compound written? There is no rule you can work out from the meaning. It is settled by use, so check a dictionary.

One habit helps: the older and more common a compound is, the more likely it is written as one word.

What does help is the meaning test. A compound means something the two words alone do not:

• common sense is not 'sense that is common'; it means good practical judgement;
• quick-witted means able to think fast and cleverly.

Match the parts: quick + witted, soft + spoken, common + sense, house + hold, book + store, ill + tempered, sky + blue, dance + hall.

Use them: Ravi was soft-spoken and grew up in a lively household. Arun was ill-tempered, but admired Ravi's quick-witted thinking. Passing a dance hall, they saw a performer drop a sky blue book bought at the bookstore. Arun joked that it was common sense it came from a bookshop and not a bakery!