A bahuvrihi (बहुवृहि), or bahuvrihi compound, is a particular kind of compound word that refers to something that is not specified by any of its parts by themselves (i.e., it is headless), especially a compound that refers to a possessor of an object specified: a bahuvrihi compound XY tends to mean someone or something which has a Y, and that Y has the characteristic X. For instance, a sabertooth is neither a saber nor a tooth: it is a smilodon, an extinct feline with saber-like fangs. Often, but not always, the last constituent in a bahuvrihi is a noun, and the whole compound is an adjective. English bahuvrihis often refer pejoratively to properties of human beings.

The term "bahuvrihi" was first used by Sanskrit grammarians, and is a specific Sanskrit example: a compound consisting of bahu ("much") and vrihi ("rice") and meaning a rich person, a person who owns many rice paddies.

Other examples of English bahuvrihis are "flatfoot", "half-wit", "highbrow", "lowlife", "redhead", "tenderfoot", "longlegs", and "white-collar".

A bahuvrihi is a type of exocentric compound, since its core semantic value is subsumed by an elliptical or 'external' semantic value. Thus, the compound is not a hyponym of the head (e.g. "dinnertable" is not a bahuvrihi because it is a kind of table and "table" is the head of the compound).

See also

• Sanskrit compounds

Bahuvrihi | Bahuvrihi | Bahuvrihi