Pair each word with its partner to form a compound word. Successfully match all words to complete the board. Complete all 3 boards to win the game!

Only genuine closed compound words are allowed, no hyphenated compounds, open compounds, or coincidentally created words that are not compounds. Also, no words that are always capitalised, such as proper nouns or brand names.
Examples:
Firefighter ✓
Warm-up ✘
High School ✘
Carpet ✘ (formed from 'Car' and 'Pet' but not a compound word)
Blackpool ✘
PowerPoint ✘

Compound word validation is based on the Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE) – the same resource that is used for the Channel 4 programme Countdown.

When you successfully pair two words to form a compound word, they will turn green. Words must be selected in the correct order. A wrong guess costs a life.

You have 5 lives per board.

Remember, not every match you make will enable you to complete the board – choose your matches wisely. There is only one solution to each board. Boards become progressively trickier.

Game stats are saved over time, as long as you don't clear your browser cache.

When I first had the idea for Compounded, I envisaged it as a physical card game. It subsequently became apparent that determining what was, or wasn't, a legitimate closed compound word would be problematic, but might be more easily achievable in a digital format.

Like the Channel 4 game show Countdown (in which contestants attempt to form the longest words they can from nine randomly selected consonants and vowels) Compounded uses the Oxford Dictionary of English to verify if a compound word is legitimate.

You may observe differing judgements in other dictionaries, or online resources, on whether a word is hyphenated, an open compound or a closed compound – but for Compounded, all words have been checked and are valid in the ODE.

I intended this game to be both fun and educational. I hope you enjoy playing it, and perhaps discover some new compound words that were not familiar beforehand.

If you have any comments or feedback on the game, please email me at:

[email protected]

Your game data stays on your device. Your progress, statistics and settings are stored only in your own browser (using local storage). They are never sent to a server, and nobody but you can see them. Clearing your browser data will erase them.

Anonymous visit counting. This site uses GoatCounter, a privacy-friendly analytics service, to count visits and anonymous game events (such as how many players complete a day's boards). It does not use cookies, does not collect personal data, and cannot identify you. No advertising or tracking networks are used.

Fonts. The game's fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests those font files from Google's servers when the page loads.

Compounded has no accounts, no sign-ups and no ads. If you have any questions about privacy, please email [email protected].