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In Romance languages, compound words are much rarer than in Germanic language such as English, but they do exist.

My favourite kind of word formation in Spanish is the one that results in words such as abrebotellas and espantapájaros which are made by compounding a verb in the third person present singular indicative with a plural noun.

But are there other kinds of compound words in Spanish? I'm sure there are but after wracking my brain all I could come up with was quemarropa which is about as close as you can get to the kind I just described.

Do other kinds of compound exist in Spanish?

(I'm not looking for a complete list, just a yes no answer with either a couple of examples or link or reference with further reading.)

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3 Answers 3

up vote 5 down vote accepted



Edit: This Wikipedia article also has more examples.

Edit 2: I've found another composition:

  • Verb + pronoun + verb = noun: hazmerreír (more triple combinations here)
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I have a feeling there are even some prepositions or adverbs which are compounds but, again I can't think of any so I might be wrong. –  hippietrail Dec 8 '11 at 14:51
Like 'sinvergüenza', 'contrasentido'? –  dusan Dec 8 '11 at 14:53
<removed obsolete comments> –  Flimzy Dec 8 '11 at 22:38
tentempié: verb + pronoun + preposition + noun. –  Peter Taylor Jan 2 '12 at 13:55

Some used in Colombia:

  • Chiflamicas: A really bad musician. I believe it's the composition of chiflar/silvar (whistle) and micas (mico, perhaps?) Couldn't find anything on Google that would explain how the word came into existence but definitely looks like a composition of 2 words.

Some others:

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In Perú, Cogeculos would definitely lower your reputation with the ladies :) –  César Dec 30 '11 at 15:54

It's a whole sentence in one word.

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+1 Nice one, I love it! –  César Dec 30 '11 at 15:50
+1 Indeed, nice word! –  Icarus Dec 30 '11 at 15:58

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