An 8-Ounce Steak: A Look At Compound Adjectives

Would you like an 8-ounce steak?

Well, you won't get it here, but, you'll learn how to use phrases like "an 8-ounce steak". We call these compound adjectives.

 Compound Adjective Structure & Use

 (Flying from New York City to Tokyo takes 12 hours/ New York City to Tokyo is a 12-hour flight)

Let's look at the examples above: an 8-ounce steak and a 12-hour flight.


A compound adjective can be broken down like this:

number              measurement          noun

 8                     ounce (29grams)         steak

12                      hour                           flight

 We also use an extra noun to make a compound adjective.

number     noun             noun

  5             course           dinner

"We had a 5-course dinner at the new Italian restaurant downtown/"


Notice we don't use the plural form of the measurements or nouns.

I ate an 8-ounces steak. NO!

I ate an 8-ounce steak. YES!


The phrase 8-ounce or 12-hour flight work as adjectives: it's telling you what kind of steak it is, or how long the flight is. Compound adjectives make it faster and easier to describe people, places, things, and ideas. We use them when talking about journeys, food, people, etc.

Exercise

Change two sentences into one sentence using compound adjectives. Study the example then do questions 2 to 6. Key words and phrases are in bold. As always, answers can be written in the comments section.



1/

Omar has a Great Dane. It's 200 pounds. 

Omar has a 200-pound Great Dane.

2/

I have a bus ride to school. It takes 20 minutes.

3/

                           Sandeesh is running a teacher training course in May. It lasts 6 weeks.

4/

 

The new electric car is a sedan. It has 7 seats.

5/ 

Juan is stressed because she has to write a term paper. The term paper has to be 50000 words.


6/

    

I'm going to buy a hard drive. It's 2 terabytes.

You can also use compound adjectives to talk about people.