Bahuvrihi

A bahuvrīhí (बहुव्रीहि), or bahuvrihi compound (also exocentric compound), is a type of nominal compound that refers to something that is not specified by any of its parts by themselves (i.e., it is headless or exocentric, its core semantic value being subsumed by an elliptical or 'external' semantic value so that the compound is not a hyponym of the head), 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 (smil-odon) is neither a saber nor a tooth: it is an extinct feline with saber-like fangs. English bahuvrihis often describe people using synecdoche: flatfoot, half-wit, highbrow, lowlife, redhead, tenderfoot, longlegs, and white-collar. Many of these are colloquial, pejorative, or both.

The term bahuvrihi was first used by Sanskrit grammarians, and is a specific Sanskrit example: a compound consisting of bahu (much) and vrihi (rice); the compound connotes a rich man, one who has "much rice".

The last constituent in a Sanskrit bahuvrihi is a noun, more strictly: a nominal stem. The whole compound is an adjective and agrees in gender and number with the head. The accent is regularly on the first member (tatpurusha rāja-pútra "a king's son", but bahuvrihi rājá-putra "having kings as sons" (viz rājá-putra- (m.) "father of kings", rājá-putrā- (f.) "mother of kings"), with the exception of a number of non-nominal prefixes such as the privative a; the word "bahuvrīhí" is itself likewise an exception to this rule.

See also