09 Compound Noun

•
•
Nouns
Compound Nouns
• Forming Compound Nouns
• Longer and Plural Compound Nouns

NOUNS
Nouns are the words we use to name all the things we know about, have, see, hear, taste, smell, or
feel. This includes words for people, such as man, teacher, and friend. It includes words for places,
such as city, kitchen, and street. It includes words for things, such as ball, tree, and computer. And it
includes words for things we know exist but can't touch, such as idea, air, pollution, and strength.

TYPES OF NOUNS
Common and Proper Nouns
Nouns that identify general people, places, or things are called common nouns — they name or
identify that which is common among others. Proper nouns, on the other hand, are used to identify
an absolutely unique person, place, or thing, and they are signified by capital letters, no matter where
they appear in a sentence.

Concrete and Abstract Nouns

Concrete nouns name people, places, animals, or things that are physically tangible — that is, they
can be seen or touched, or have some physical properties. Proper nouns are also usually concrete, as
they describe unique people, places, or things that are also tangible. For example:
• table • lake • people • MacBook
• rock • countries • Africa • Jonathan
Abstract nouns, as their name implies, name intangible things, such as concepts, ideas, feelings,
characteristics, attributes, etc. For instance:
• love • decency • emotion
• hate • conversation • weakness

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Countable nouns (also known as count nouns) are nouns that can be considered as individual,
separable items, which means that we are able to count them with numbers—we can have one, two,
five, 15, 100, and so on. We can also use them with the indefinite articles a and an (which signify a
single person or thing) or with the plural form of the noun.

VOCABULARY 1 1
Countable nouns contrast with uncountable nouns (also known as non-count or mass nouns), which
cannot be separated and counted as individual units or elements. Uncountable nouns cannot take an
indefinite article (a/an), nor can they be made plural.

Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are nouns that refer to a collection or group of multiple people, animals, or things.
However, even though collective nouns refer to multiple individuals, they still function as singular
nouns in a sentence. This is because they still are technically referring to one thing: the group as a
whole. For example:
• “The flock of birds flew south for the winter.”
• “The organization voted to revoke the rules that it had previously approved.”
• “The set of tablecloths had disappeared.”

COMPOUND NOUNS
A compound noun is a noun composed of two or more words working together as a single unit to
name a person, place, or thing. Compound nouns are usually made up of two nouns or an adjective
and a noun, but other combinations are also possible.

VOCABULARY 1 2
FORMING COMPOUND NOUNS
Noun + Noun
There are a great number of compound nouns formed using the noun + noun combination. For
example:
• backpack • bedroom • football • shopkeeper
• bathroom • bus stop • handbag • tablecloth
• bathtub • fish tank • motorcycle • toothpaste

Adjective + Noun
There are also many compound nouns that are formed using the adjective + noun combination. For
example:
• full moon • mobile phone • six-pack
• blackberry • hardware • small talk
• blackbird • highway • software
• blackboard • greenhouse • whiteboard
• cell-phone • redhead • Brave Dragon

Other Combinations
Although the noun + noun and adjective + noun combinations are the most common, there are also
plenty of other possibilities for forming compound nouns. For example:
Combination Examples
noun + verb haircut (hair & cut), rainfall, sunrise, sunset
noun + preposition hanger-on, passerby (passer & by)
noun + prepositional phrase brother-in-law (brother & in-law), mother-in-law, sister-in-law
verb + noun breakfast (break & fast), washing machine, runway, pickpocket,
swimming pool
preposition + noun bystander, influx, onlooker, underpants, upstairs (up & stairs)
verb + preposition check-in, checkout/check-out, drawback, lookout, makeup (make
& up)
adjective + verb dry cleaning, public speaking, virtual meeting (virtual & meeting)
preposition + verb input, output, overthrow (over & throw), upturn

VOCABULARY 1 3
LONGER AND PLURAL COMPOUND NOUNS
Longer Compound Nouns
Two or more nouns can be put with another noun to modify it. This structure is common in newspaper
headlines in order to save space. For example
• I become the first winner of this table tennis tournament.
• Bank robbery ringleader capture has been confirmed by the police.
• Every freshman in UKMC must attend Musi Charitas Catholic University Initiation Program.
• It’s quite challenging to attend an afternoon research proposal class after lunch.

Plural Compound Nouns

To make a compound noun plural, we must make the final noun (or word) become plural.
• The summer party was fun. → It’s a singular noun because the last noun is singular.
• The summer parties are always fun. → It becomes a plural noun because the last noun is
plural.

References
DK Penguin Random House. (2016). English for everyone: English grammar guide. New York: DK
Publishing.
Herring, P. (2016). The Farlex grammar book: Complete English grammar rules. Farlex International.
Yates, J. (2006). English vocabulary for beginning ESL learners. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies,
Inc.

VOCABULARY 1 4