Compound verbs

Verbs formed by compounding are much less usual than verbs derived by affixation. Nevertheless, a variety of types exist which may be distinguished according to their structure:

(6) verb–verb (VV): stir-fry, freeze-dry

(7) noun–verb (NV): hand-wash, air-condition, steam-clean

(8) adjective–verb (AV): dry-clean, whitewash

(9) preposition–verb (PV): underestimate, outrun, overcook

Only the PV type is really common, however, and some compounds with under-, over- and out- do not need to be classed as lexical items. For example, out- can create a transitive verb meaning ‘outdo in Xing’ from any verb denoting a competitive or potentially competitive activity (e.g. outsail, outsing, outswim), while new words with over- can also be created freely (e.g. overpolish, overcriticise, overbleach).

You will notice that all these compounds have a verb as the rightmost element, and also that, with most of them, the activity denoted by the compound as whole is a variety of the activity denoted by that right-most element. Let us call these compounds right-headed, the rightmost element being the head. Most English compounds are right-headed, but not all.