Compound adjectives

English is a very creative language in the sense that new words are invented every day, and
one easy way to create a new term is to make compound nouns or adjectives. Thus, an
animal with cold blood is a cold-blooded animal. Cold-blooded is a compound adjective
made up of an adjective and a noun, to which the suffix-ed has been added. This word
ending in -ed may look like a participle but in fact it is not, because in order to be a
participle, the root has to be a verb, not a noun.
A few more examples:

A man with dark hair and blue eyes is a dark-haired, blue-eyed man.
A person with long legs is a long-legged person.

As you can see, all these examples are formed by adding -ed to an adjective-noun
combination. But this is by no means the only one possible.

A compound adjective is a combination of two or more words that works as an adjective.

These words can be adjectives, nouns, adverbs or participles, and they can be hyphenated
or not. A hyphen is a punctuation mark in the form of a short line (-) that is put between two
words to join them.

These compounds can be written as one word (waterproof), two separate words (brick red)
or they can be hyphenated (snow-white). The compounds that are used more often tend to
appear in one word. Those that combine occasionally but keep their individual meaning
tend to use a hyphen. And those that come in two words keep their independent identity.
But British and American English don't always use the hyphens in the same word
combinations, so, when in doubt, check a good dictionary!

Sometimes, more than two words can be found forming a compound (up-to-date, state-of-
the-art,..) These expressions are only found hyphenated when they precede the noun they
qualify, but not when they follow linking verbs. Examples:

combinations

Noun + adjective
Trustworthy, blameworthy, duty-free, tax-free, seasick, watertight, waterproof, colour-
blind, worldwide, knee-deep, self-conscious, and other compounds that are equivalent
to the construction "as...as..." : brick red (as red as brick), stone-cold (as cold as a
stone), paper-thin (as thin as paper)

Adjective+adjective
A combination of two qualities: bitter-sweet, deaf-mute.
 A combination in which the first element takes the suffix -o: socio-economic,
Anglo-Saxon, Franco-German, Anglo-American. In this case, all the combinations are
hyphenated.
A combination in which the first adjective qualifies the second adjective:dark-blue,
red-hot, Roman-Catholic.
Adverb+adjective
Evergreen, oversensitive, all-American

Noun+present participle

Self-defeating, self-denying, heart-breaking, breath-taking, law-abiding,

Noun+past participle

Self-taught, hand-made, thunderstruck, home-brewed, heart-felt, brightly-lit, open-

minded, well-behaved

Adjective or adverb+present participle

Forthcoming, everlasting, neverending, easygoing, good-looking

Adjective or adverb+past participle

Far-fetched, well-meant, widespread, new-laid, long-awaited

Number+ noun

Second-hand, first-rate. Notice that adjectives using numbers, like any other adjectives,
are not found in the plural. Thus, a boy who is twelve years old is atwelve-year-old boy, or
a tree which measures three metres is a three-metre-talltree. These expressions with
numbers are always hyphenated.

Adjective+ noun

Apart from the common formation that we have seen at the beginning of this post, in which
the noun takes the suffix -ed, there are other possibilities such as last-minute, deep-
sea, ...
Noun+noun
Part-time
Verb+adjective or adverb
Feel-good, buy-now, pay-later