Compound Adjectives in English Hyphenated Adjectives Learn Advanced English Grammar

let's look at the following sentences saw man eating alligator saw man eating alligator what is the difference between these two sentences the first sentence has hyphen which is little Dash between the two words man and eating and the second sentence doesn't is is there difference in meaning yes there is big difference let's use some cartoons to show this the first sentence contains compound adjective man eating compound adjective is an adjective that contains two or more words joined by hyphen in this case we are joining the words man and eating to create the compound adjective this compound adjective describes the alligator as one that eats men or people in general is it banana eating alligator no is it hamburger eating alligator no it is man eating alligator compound adjectives appear before and now noun and act as single idea single adjective that describes something the second sentence doesn't have compound adjective there is no hyphen between the word man and eating why because we're talking about how we saw man who was eating an alligator we are not not describing the alligator so quickly looking at both sentences again the first sentence saw man eating alligator we're describing the alligator what type of alligator is it it is one that eats men or people the second sentence saw man eating alligator I'm talking about man who is eating an alligator as you can can see The Hyphen or lack of hyphen makes big difference in the meaning of the sentence let's learn more about compound adjectives as we have seen compound adjective is an adjective that contains two or more words joined by hyphen live in an English-speaking country English-speaking is compound adjective used to describe the country we use hyphen to connect the word English with speaking to show that it is one adjective or one idea what type of country is it it is an English-speaking country look at this sentence she is world famous singer she is not just famous singer in her country she is also famous around the world so she is world famous singer in general we do not use hyphen between two adjectives she has big blue book big and blue are adjectives so we do not put hyphen between these two adjectives this includes when one of the adjectives is also compound adjective look at the following he lives in an old coal mining town coal mining is compound adjective that consists of coal and Mining what type of town is it coal mining town town where they mine coal but we have also included the adjective old because it is an old town we didn't put in between the word old and coal because coal is part of the compound adjective coal mining in general we don't put hyphen between two adjectives including if one of those is compound adjective so how can we make compound ad adjectives which parts of speech can be part of compound adjective here is list of the most common types of compound adjectives periods of time one very common use of compound adjectives is with periods of time the compound adjective is made with number plus period of time some examples include 5 minute 3 hour 10 day 6 month 20 year it is important to note that the period of time needs to be in singular form five minute without an not five minutes let's look at the first example work an 8 hour day day we do not put an at the end of hour we cannot say work an 8 hours day this is not correct the time period needs to be in its singular form work an8 hour day this means that work 8 hours every day there is an at the end of hours in this sentence on the right because it is not compound adjective that goes before noun look at these other examples had 3 we vacation this means went on vacation for 3 weeks there was 5c delay there was delay of 5 Seconds notice how we normally write the number as word not in numerical form unless it is very large number and remember it is important not to add an at the end of the compound adjective had 3 week vacation not 3 weeks vacation number plus singular noun when we have number before noun in compound adjective that noun is always in singular form this not only applies to periods of time as we have already seen but with other nouns too some examples of compound adjectives that are made from number plus singular noun include five minute three hour 10 Story one way 20 Page our example sentences had to print 10 page document no at the end of page you need to go down that oneway street we live in twostory house note when we're talking about the level of building story with an is used in British English story without an is used in American English so in American English it is written as we live in twostory house where story doesn't have the in it adjective plus noun some examples of compound adjectives that are made from an adjective plus noun include last minute full length shortterm long distance high quality our example sentences made last minute decision to stay home most of their staff are on shortterm contracts we create high quality resources adjective plus present participle some examples of compound adjectives that are made from an adjective plus present participle include goodlooking longlasting easygoing tight fitting quick thinking our example sentences it left longlasting taste in my mouth she wore pair of tight fitting jeans the quick thinking staff got everyone to safety noun plus present participle some examples of compound adjectives that are made from noun plus present participle include mouthwatering record breaking time saving English speaking our example sentences bought some mouth water watering strawberries yum that was record-breaking jump used to live in Spanish-speaking country noun plus adjective some examples of compound adjectives that are made from noun plus adjective include world famous smoke free ice cold gluten-free family friendly our example sentences we often go to the familyfriendly restaurant near our house there is nothing better than ice cold drink on hot day could you buy me some gluten-free cookies please noun Plus past participle some examples of of compound adjectives that are made from noun Plus past participle include wind powered Su dried middle-aged water cooled our example sentences we should start using wind powered generators to cut costs added some sundried tomatoes to the platter my new watercooled gaming PC is quieter than my old one adjective Plus past participle some examples of compound adjectives that are made from an adjective Plus past participle include oldfashioned long forgotten readymade shortlived our example sentences found long forgotten painting in the Attic he doesn't like to cook so he buys readymade meals they had short-lived romance hope you found this grammar lesson about compound adjectives useful