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>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)

Here's the most relevant part of the article linked above:

"A certain type of compounds (endocentric) consist of a head, i.e.
the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole
compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example,
the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the
modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Obviously, an
endocentric compound tends to be of the same part of speech (word
class) as its head.

In other cases, the compound does not have a head, and its meaning
cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For
example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of
collar nor a white thing. In the Sanskrit tradition, this is called a
bahuvrihi compound; another (modern) term is exocentric compound,
meaning that the concept represented by the compound lies outside its
parts. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined
lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a
must-have is not a verb but a noun."

best regards,

/Rett

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