bahuvrihi

[hitchhiker]

A compound word functioning as an adjective whose last element is in origin a noun. For example, in the phrase high-fiber diet, the compound high-fiber is a bahuvrihi modifying diet that ends in the noun fiber.

[Sanskrit bahuvrīhiḥ, having much rice (an example of the type) : bahu-, much + vrīhiḥ, rice.]

[seen in the wild]

Comments

[pseudomonas]

The article seems to imply it's a Thai word rather than an import into English, right?

[hitchhiker]

No, it's a Sanskrit word (ancient Sanskrit scholars pioneered much of formal grammar) that has been adopted into English. It's a "proper" English linguistic term.

The article was simply linked because that's where I discovered the word - it's about the Thai Scrabble scene (only they call it Crossword due to trademark issues, namely their selling of the game without a license from Mattel)

[bandersnatch42]

That's a delicious word.

The definition of Bahuvrihi

[awhyzip]

The article seems to imply that the word means something different than what you've written here.

A "Bahuvrihi" is not just a compound word -- it is a compound word in which NEITHER of the component words are equivalent to the basic meaning of their combination.

A good example is "paperback". Even though that word "book" is not actually present in the compound, that is the basic meaning of the compound word: "paperback [book]".
This could be restated as "a [book] having a back that is paper" (to use the formula from the article).

In linguistic terms, a Bahuvrihi is an "exocentric" compound, meaning that the "head" of the compound is not found within the compound. The "head" is the word that contains the basic meaning of the compound: the "book" in "paperback [book]". The rest of the compound are modifiers.

Google Books has a link to a book on Sanskrit grammar, which explains this well. (Read down to point 4.)

On a side note,
I'm not impressed with "high-fiber" as a good example of a bahuvrihi (even if the American Heritage