Identify the compound noun in the following sentence.

During class, Professor Dominquez lectured about insect life cycles.

A.

life cycles

B.

During class

C.

Professor

D.

insect life

The compound noun in the sentence is A. life cycles.

A compound noun is a word formed by two or more words. The first one generally indicates the type of object/person; in other words, it classifies the object or person presented in the second word. Furthermore, compound nouns have a different meaning than the meaning of the two words taken separately.

In this sentence, "life cycles" is a compound noun because it has been formed with the words "life" and "cycles", which are also two nouns. "Life", in this case, is indicating the kind of cycle that the sentence is referring to. In that way, the compound noun "life cycles", defined as the series of stages that a living organism goes through during its whole life, does not have the same meaning than the words "life" and "cycles" taken alone.