Pair words together to form compound words.

Wrong guesses and ‘un-matches’ cost lives. You have 5 lives per board.

Match all words to complete the board. There are 3 boards per day.

When you successfully pair two words they will turn green.

There are extra ‘decoy’ compound words on each board, so you may need to un-match some words you have already paired to complete the board.

Select a word you have previously matched to see which other word you paired it with – then select the other word to un-match (costs a life).

If you are stuck, you can select the ‘Hint’ button. This will highlight any compound words that you have found that are decoys i.e. not part of the final completed board solution. You have one hint per board.

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 X - High School X - Carpet X - Blackpool X - PowerPoint X

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 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.

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