compound.

1. An enclosed area containing several buildings and associated spaces.

2. A substance whose constituent elements are bonded in a characteristic composition.

3. To worsen a difficulty by adding further problems.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a walled compound
• a residential compound

On the page

The walled compound had three gates, but only one showed use.

Gardens softened the compound without changing its guarded entrance.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting. Forms: Singular compound; plural compounds. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Third-person singular: compounds.