I would agree that real when used with estate forms a new meaning that is different than thinking of real as an adjective. Noun.īut a post officeis not really a type of office at all, it’s a type of retail outlet so it’s clearly a compound word and not an adjective noun combination. For instance, a business office is to me, just a type of office. I think the functional part of this is the idea of a new meaning. I like this definition of a compound word: When two words form a new word with a new meaning. When is a word a compound word and when is it just an adjective with a noun?

And three hundred (open form) but that is not my topic for today, let’s return to the question of: Numbers, by the way, are a really arbitrary combination of compound word types. Some examples of compound words with a space in them: post office, real estate, fire engine, and light bulb. Open form compound words are compound words that are not joined together like “closed form” compound words but have a space in them. Examples include butterfly, shoehorn, and windmill. An open form compound word? Mostly, people think of compound words as being two words joined together with no spaces or hyphens between which makes them “closed form”. It seem that they consider these words – s chool days, school bus, school boy, school books – to be all open form compound word. What to make of Merriam Webster? What do they think about the school bus?Merriam lists school bus as a noun. Finally, I found which mentions three uses of the word “school”: noun, verb, and adjective! While this seemed obvious to me, I was now aware that there was room for disagreement.

What is a verb noun and adjective