A type of compound word where the combination means something different from what the individual parts suggest, like 'redhead' meaning a person, not something that is red and a head.
From Sanskrit bahuvrihi, literally meaning 'much rice'—the classic example where the compound itself refers to a person who possesses much rice (a wealthy person) rather than literally being rice.
Bahuvrihi is a Sanskrit grammatical term that became so useful that linguists adopted it into English to describe a pattern that appears in tons of languages—proving that sometimes the best way to understand language is to borrow the fancy word another language already invented.
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