In the first edition the sentence ran "two or more" words; being so written to account for compounds like mid-ship-man,
gentle-man-like, &c., where the number of verbal elements seems to amount to three.
Nevertheless, the caution was unnecessary. Compound radicals like midship and gentleman, are, for the purposes of composition, single words. Compounds wherein one element is compound are called decomposites.
[§ 424]. The present chapter closes with the notice of two classes of words. They are mentioned now, not because they are compounds, but because they can be treated of here more conveniently than elsewhere.
There are a number of words which are never found by themselves; or, if so found, have never the same sense that they have in combination. Mark the word combination. The terms in question are points of combination, not of composition: since they form not the parts of words, but the parts of phrases. Such are the expressions time and tide—might and main—rede me my riddle—pay your shot—rhyme and reason, &c. These words are evidently of the same class, though not of the same species with bishopric, colewort, spillikin, gossip, mainswearer, and the words quoted in p. [362]. These last-mentioned terms give us obsolete words preserved in composition. The former give us obsolete words preserved in combination.
The other words are etymological curiosities. They may occur in any language. The English, however, from the extent of its classical element, is particularly abundant in them. It is a mere accident that they are all compound words.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ON DERIVATION AND INFLECTION.