First, in order to understand compound adjectives, you need to know what an adjective is. An adjective is a word that describes something. For example; if you say a yellow pencil, yellow is an adjective because it describes the pencil. It shows us that the pencil is yellow.<\/p>\n
If we have understood what an adjective modifies, we can now learn about the compound adjectives. It is a form of an adjective that is formed when two or more adjectives are joined together to modify the same noun. They usually used with hyphens (-) between them. The hyphen symbolizes the unification of the words. We use it when we want these words to act as a whole and a single idea.<\/p>\n
Examples<\/p>\n
There are some occasions when we don\u2019t use hyphens between the adjectives or words.<\/p>\n
Example<\/p>\n
I love to watch the National Geographic channel.<\/p>\n
Example<\/p>\n
She showed up at the party with her \u2018always classy\u2019 look.<\/p>\n
Example<\/p>\n
This restaurant has an\u00a0a la carte<\/em>\u00a0menu.<\/p>\n Adverbs modify a verb, and we can use them with uniting them to adjectives before a noun. In this situation, an adverb modifies an adjective. Because of this modification but not the unification of the idea of these two words, we do not put a hyphen between an adverb and an adjective.<\/p>\n Example<\/p>\n I passed an extremely hard exam.<\/p>\n As you see, there is no hyphen between the words. But there are acceptances when we use a hyphen between an adverb and an adjective;<\/p>\n Adverb+Past participle<\/p>\n Example<\/p>\n You would be confused about this hyphen situation, but the rule is simple. If you want to unify the meaning of your adjective or adjective and adverb, you should put a hyphen between them.<\/p>\n There is another simple rule that if you can use \u2018and\u2019 between your adjectives, there is no need to use a hyphen.<\/p>\n Example<\/p>\n She is going to wear a long black dress at the prom. (You can use \u2018and\u2019 between the words long and black- She is going to wear a long and black dress at the prom)<\/p>\n Time indicating with compound adjectives<\/p>\n You can use the structure of compound adjectives which can be a number+a time period in that situation, to indicate the time. You should use a hyphen while indicating time like this.<\/p>\n Example<\/p>\n \u2192I have a lot of short-haired friends in my class.<\/p>\n \u2192My brother cannot see my point of view, he is such a narrow-minded person.<\/p>\n \u2192My family and I like to travel all around the world and this gave us some different perspectives for life. I think I have an open-minded family.<\/p>\n \u2192I don\u2019t like the way you dress. You look like the old-fashioned lady in our apartment.<\/p>\n \u2192This is a long-forgotten situation.<\/p>\n \u2192You can make a tea out of sun-dried daisies.<\/p>\n \u2192My teacher is a middle-aged woman who is married with two children.<\/p>\n \u2192The government agreed on using sun-powered generators for the city.<\/p>\n \u2192I made home-made cheesecakes and some bread today.<\/p>\n \u2192There are mouth-watering cakes at the entrance of this patisserie.<\/p>\n \u2192I\u2019ve watched a romantic film last night and it has such a heart-breaking story that I couldn\u2019t hold my tears while I was watching it.<\/p>\n \u2192My sister decided to move to an English-speaking country to improve her English.<\/p>\n \u2192This must be a record-breaking album because it is on the top of every list for weeks.<\/p>\n \u2192I promise myself on the New Year\u2019s eve that I\u2019m going to do time-saving activities and stop being a procrastinator this year.<\/p>\n \u2192It seems to me that, this is going to be a long-lasting relationship.<\/p>\n \u2192She is such a good-looking girl.<\/p>\n \u2192I am late because of slow-moving traffic.<\/p>\n \u2192There was a never-ending action through the film.<\/p>\n \u2192She is such a forward-thinking character that she would be a leader someday.<\/p>\n \u2192There must be a smoke-free area in this part of the airport.<\/p>\n \u2192My father started to eat sugar-free foods because of his health problems.<\/p>\n \u2192Michael Jackson is a world-famous singer.<\/p>\n \u2192 They are trying to hold on to their long-distance relationship.<\/p>\n \u2192I\u2019m sick of his last-minute decisions, I don\u2019t know what to do sometimes.<\/p>\n \u2192I cannot find a full-length version of this portrait on the Internet.<\/p>\n \u2192My brother is a blue-eyed little boy.<\/p>\n \u2192My uncle is a police and he has a bullet-proof jacket.<\/p>\n \u2192I am looking for a part-time job which is near to my school in the city center.<\/p>\n \u2192She has big-green eyes. (You should make this sentence without using a hyphen between big and green, you should add \u2018and between the adjectives)<\/p>\n She had big green eyes.<\/p>\n \u2192We have a large and brown dining table in our dining room.<\/p>\nCompound adjectives with adverbs<\/h3>\n
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Some examples of compound adjectives<\/h3>\n
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