Name _____________________________
Date ______________
Compound Nouns
Definition:
A compound noun is made up of two or more words used together as a
single noun
The words tooth and paste are each nouns in their own
right, but if you join them together they form a new word
- toothpaste.
The word black is an adjective and board is a noun, but if you join them
together they form a new word - blackboard.
Here are more examples:
One Word
Separate Words
Hyphenated Word
basketball, filmmaker,
drugstore, doghouse,
grasshopper, grandson,
Passover, Greenland, Iceland
fire drill, chain reaction,
Thomas. A. Edison, House of
Representatives, North
Americans
self-control, fund-raiser,
eighteen-year-olds, motherin-law, out-of-doors,
president-elect
Name _____________________________
Date ______________
Note: When you are not sure how to write a compound noun, look it up on the
dictionary.
Identifying Compound Nouns
Directions: Circle the compound noun in each of the following sentences.
Example: Did you know that the most famous alphabet used by people with visual
impairments was invented by a fifteen-year-old?
1. Louis Braille was born in 1809 in France.
2. His father was a saddlemaker who often let Louis play with pieces of
leather.
3. In 1812, when the three-year-old tried to punch a hole in a piece of leather,
the tool slipped and injured his left eye.
4. Infection from the wound spread to both eyes, and Louis completely lost his
eyesight.
5. Louis left for Paris in 1819 to attend the National Institute for the Blind.
6. By 1824, Louis made real his daydream to develop an alphabet for the blind.
7. His first version used both dots and dashes, but that system had drawbacks.
8. As a young teacher at the National Institute for Blind Children, Louis Braille
perfected an alphabet of raised dots.
9. Now a machine called a braillewriter is used.
10. Braille died in 1852, and although his alphabet is widely used now, it never
was during his lifetime.