Word.ws English Dictionary

open compound

open compound noun: a compound word with spaces in it, for example, high school, school bus, or science fiction.

Noun

open compound (plural open compounds)

  1. A compound word with spaces in it, for example, high school, school bus, or science fiction.
    • Two-word compounds--named open compounds in Edward N. Teall's Meet Mr. Hyphen--are in fact very common.1951, English Journal, Volume 40
    • Thus such words, to give only a very few examples, as pismire, baise-mains, favonian, hearstling, happenstance, chanticleer, and open compounds like guardhouse lawyer,sidewalk superintendent and slush fund are registered without any kind of status label ...1966, Ladislas Országh, Deficiencies of Modern English Dictionaries in English Studies Today, Fourth Serieshttps://books.google.com/books?id=ftJKfD7WKwcC&pg=PA71&dq=%22open+compounds%22

Examples of open compound in a sentence

  • Further, the language permits open compounds, as indicated above, so that we might conjecture such spellings as "battlecry, battle-field, battle ground, battle-piece and battlewise."1971, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Volume 5https://books.google.com/books?id=dvWkHF_6NAgC&pg=PA52&dq=%22open+compounds%2...
  • The MEYYED gives it as an open compound (ris uf) in the English- Yiddish ...1981, Jewish Language Review
  • The examples also exemplify the three forms that compound words take: 1) open compound (snail mail); 2) hyphenated compound (eagle-eyed); and 3) solid compound (bookworm).1992, Sheila Davis, The Songwriter's Idea Bookhttps://books.google.com/books?id=6hhjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT143
  • A subentry is an open compound (e.g., express contract) whose major element is the noun (contract at whose alphabetical place the subentry is entered.1996, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Lawhttps://books.google.com/books?id=JYs74quLWLIC&pg=PR7&dq=%22open+compound%22

Forms of open compound

pluralopen compounds

Questions about open compound

What does open compound mean?
Open compound means a compound word with spaces in it, for example, high school, school bus, or science fiction.
How do you use open compound in a sentence?
Further, the language permits open compounds, as indicated above, so that we might conjecture such spellings as "battlecry, battle-field, battle ground, battle-piece and battlewise."
What part of speech is open compound?
Open compound is a noun.
What is the plural of open compound?
The plural of open compound is open compounds.

Words near open compound in the dictionary

  1. open comedo
  2. open comedone
  3. open comedones
  4. open comedos
  5. open communion
  6. open compound
  7. open compounds
  8. open content
  9. open convention
  10. open conventions
  11. open core

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: open compound (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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