Most frequent hyphenated compound adjectives – English Grammar Profiler
Here’s a sentence with 3 examples of hyphenated compound adjectives:
There are pages around on the internet that list English Vocabulary Profile lists that seem to be used as what should be taught at a particular level. This is always going to be a slightly controversial approach. Since the EVP is about what past students could do, not what future students should do. These lists do help possibly triangulate what vocabulary used is most frequently with what students can do at a given level.
In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 60 in the category of ADJECTIVES is defined as
“combining, … an increasing range of compound adjectives.”
However its examples include: ‘up-to-date‘ which is B1 on English Vocabulary Profile, and ‘state-of-the-art” is listed as C1. “user-friendly” is not listed on the EVP at all. This then means there is an unclear clash between vocabulary and grammar levels. For the purposes which are more about vocabulary than grammar, and where we need more examples to explore, it is best to rely on the 14 hyphenated adjectives that the EVP offers at B2:
bad-tempered grown-up hi-tech last-minute long-distance long-term non-smoking self-confident short-term so-called well-balanced well-built well-organized well-paid
On iWeb corpus, we can locate 6 or 7 Profile examples at B2 on the left below, and on the right many others.
compound adjective list
1 LONG-TERM 649120
further collocates 5 to the left and right:
1 CARE (NN1 ) 34998
2 HEALTH (NN1 ) 17945
3 EFFECTS (NN2 ) 17121
4 GOALS (NN2 ) 14608
5 GROWTH (NN1 ) 13361 6 SUCCESS (NN1 ) 13141 7 RELATIONSHIPS (NN2 ) 10553 8 INVESTMENT (NN1 ) 9896 9 SHORT-TERM (JJ ) 9863
10 RELATIONSHIP (NN1 ) 9434
2 FULL-TIME 338862 B1 EVP
3 BUILT-IN 256174 (not on EVP)
4 HIGH-QUALITY 225521 (not on EVP)
5 SO-CALLED 216745
1 ” (” ) 123053 2 ‘ (GE ) 24705 3 ISLAMIC (JJ ) 1978
4 EXPERTS (NN2 )
6 WELL-KNOWN 203758 A2 7 HANDS-ON 186346 (not) 8 AWARD-WINNING 183029 (not)
9 THIRD-PARTY 178326 (not)
10 SHORT-TERM 177245
1 LONG-TERM (JJ ) 15186 2 MEMORY (NN1 ) 6863 3 GOALS (NN2 ) 4776 4 RATES (NN2 ) 3708
5 DISABILITY (NN1 ) 3583
11 REAL-TIME 174837 12 IN-DEPTH 170181 13 PART-TIME 165745 14 NON-PROFIT 161994 15 IN-HOUSE 143143 16 HIGH-END 132859 17 DAY-TO-DAY 132483
18 ON-SITE 132027
19 UP-TO-DATE 129520 (B1 on the EVP)
20 ALL-TIME 121894 21 WORLD-CLASS 121080
22 FORWARD-LOOKING 115586
23 STATE-OF-THE-ART 108901 (C1 on the EVP)
24 FOUR-YEAR 95195 25 COST-EFFECTIVE 95158 26 ON-LINE 93917 27 TWO-YEAR 93479 28 LARGE-SCALE 92080 29 ALL-STAR 91096 30 REAL-WORLD 90425 31 HIGH-SPEED 89869 32 FOLLOW-UP 89084 33 YEAR-ROUND 84073 34 ONE-TIME 82581 35 PLUG-IN 82005 36 STEP-BY-STEP 76739 37 FACE-TO-FACE 75653 38 REAL-LIFE 75593 39 E-COMMERCE 74688 40 FIVE-YEAR 72802 41 THREE-YEAR 70988 42 24-HOUR 70159 43 WEB-BASED 70095 44 LOW-INCOME 69976 45 FIRST-TIME 69819 46 GLUTEN-FREE 69582 47 ANTI-INFLAMMATORY 68726 48 LOW-COST 67283 49 CUTTING-EDGE 66344 50 BEST-SELLING 65265 51 HIGH-LEVEL 64587 52 HIGH-PROFILE 64002 53 IN-STORE 63805 54 ADD-ON 63755 55 EASY-TO-USE 63539 56 AFRICAN-AMERICAN 63361 57 OLD-FASHIONED 61518
58 CLOUD-BASED 61164
59 USER-FRIENDLY 59759
60 LONG-TIME 58249
61 ONE-YEAR 58071
62 HIGH-TECH 55708
63 ENTRY-LEVEL 54402 64 ALL-NEW 53912 65 DROP-DOWN 53263 66 LONG-LASTING 53261 67 TIME-CONSUMING 52660 68 3-D 50943 69 TWO-WAY 50820 70 STAND-ALONE 49747 71 EVIDENCE-BASED 49680 72 HIGH-PERFORMANCE 49516 73 10-YEAR 49422 74 LONG-STANDING 49404 75 LIFE-THREATENING 48361 76 PRE-EXISTING 48265 77 ECO-FRIENDLY 47244 78 RIGHT-HAND 46848 79 ONE-WAY 46638 80 SAME-SEX 46588 81 EYE-CATCHING 45917 82 DECISION-MAKING 44041 83 SELF-EMPLOYED 43513 84 BACK-TO-BACK 43353 85 START-UP 43190 86 HIGH-RISK 43104 87 NON-REFUNDABLE 42939 88 NOT-FOR-PROFIT 42684 89 BLU-RAY 42632 90 ALL-IN-ONE 42519 91 YEAR-OLD 42362 92 END-TO-END 41257 93 MAN-MADE 41128 94 FAST-PACED 40451 95 LIKE-MINDED 40443 96 64-BIT 40117 97 ON-GOING 39896 98 TWO-DAY 39792 99 ON-SCREEN 39791
100 TWO-TIME 39603