TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Subscribers may view the full text of this article in ...

Some adjectives are in the dictionary, like “good-looking,” but most compound adjectives aren’t. Luckily, they’re easy to manage. Let’s start with “healthcare.” Webster’s New World ...

But what really causes us to “hyphen-ventilate” are questions involving compound adjectives. Is it “thinly veiled threat” or “thinly-veiled threat”? “Much admired writer” or ...

“Multi-million dollar” instead of “multimillion-dollar.” This compound is almost always used as an adjective in front of a noun, like a multimillion-dollar home or a multimillion-dollar dea ...

Carlos Cajina from Nicaragua asks: Compound adjectives can be: 1. Joined by a hyphen 2. Appear as a single word 3. Appear as two separate words. Is there a rule - or set of rules - to know when to ...

Antiepileptic, microorganism or antiarrhythmic do not have a hyphen. Also use hyphens for compound adjectives if it makes them clearer ('a cost-effective treatment' but 'the treatment was cost ...