Open, Closed and Hyphenated Compound Words
What are Compound Words?
It’s best to define compound words with an example:
Grand + Mother
On their own, both these words have separate meanings. But when you put these two words together, it creates an entirely different word and meaning.
Grandmother
For compound words, when you put two different words together, it forms another word and meaning. There are different types of compound words. For example, compound words can have hyphens, spaces, or no spaces at all between the two words.
Types of Compound Words
Over time, English has morphed itself. As a result, people have created new types of compound words. In turn, this language gets passed along and circulated to what it is today.
In terms of compound words, they’ve transformed into various types. For example, compound words can have hyphens, spaces, or no spaces at all between the two words. There are 3 types of compound words:
- Hyphenated Compound Words
- Closed Compound Words
- Open Compound Words
Below, we have added lists of examples for all the types of compound words.
Hyphenated Compound Words Examples
Hyphenated compound words place a hyphen between the two words. For example, “well-being” is a hyphenated compound word because it connects two words together with a hyphen.
HYPHENATED COMPOUND WORDS
- High-speed
- Empty-handed
- Mass-production
- High-tech
- Deep-fried
- Left-handed
- In-depth
- Full-length
- Part-time
- Time-saving
- North-east
- Sun-dried
- Long-haired
Closed Compound Words Examples
Closed compound words don’t have any spaces between the two combined words. For example, “playground” is a closed compound word because it doesn’t have a space between it.
CLOSED COMPOUND WORDS
- Playground
- Footprint
- Fishbowl
- Grasshopper
- Bookmark
- Keyhole
- Bowtie
- Popcorn
- Basketball
- Horseshoe
- Keyboard
- Notepad
- Skateboard
Open Compound Words Examples
Open compound words put two words together to create a meaningful weird but use a space to separate them. For instance, high school is an open compound word.
OPEN COMPOUND WORDS
- High school
- Living room
- Roller coaster
- Peanut butter
- First aid
- Web page
- Hot dog
- Voice mail
- Table cloth
- Fire drill
- Ice cream
What’s Next?
What do Superman, Robocop, and Catwoman all have in common?
They’re superheroes! Yes. But they’re also all compound words too. Actually, there are compound words everywhere.
And they’re tons of fun to teach with our free compound words worksheets. What are some of your favorite compound words?
And if you want to teach compound words, check out our free compound words worksheets that you can use in your classroom today.
Thanks ESL , the examples were superb
Very helpful 🙂
So how many compound words are there in the English language?
The examples are only a few but they helped me in my assignment
It helped me in my assignment
this really helped BUT I NEED 5 more hyphenated
This helped btw 2018 was passed 4 years ago
This helped me with my homework I need to do to day.
Thank you so much. This helped me do my holiday homework. And I was in a real RUSH. Thanks again
Thanks this will help for my next exam
This really helped. Nice Work!
This helped me when my class was going on in ENGLISH
Thanks for the help! This will help me on my next exam! 🙂
Super man is a compound word, it can also be be Known has endo -centric compound, because both super and man are both free morpheme coming together. And they can be refers to as head word. Super man can also be called compound noun
Thanks it helped with my assignment
Thanks this really helped!! 😀
Excellent compound word examples.
Can tablecloth be open and closed?
As far as I know, {superman} is not a compound because {super-} is a prefix. Thus, {superman} is a complex word. {catwoman} is a compound word because {cat} and {woman} are free morphemes.
Good point. However {super} is also an adjective indicating a superlative, as in {We had a super time at the party last night.} Plus, note that {super} is indeed a free morpheme. So it might well be a compound along the lines of other adj+noun compounds, like {greenhouse}, {blackbird}, etc.