Variation in the styling of compound words in English is frequent and widespread. However, to show all the stylings that are found for English compounds would require space that can be better used for other information. When a compound is widely used and one styling predominates, that styling is shown. When a compound is uncommon or when the evidence indicates that two or three stylings are approximately equal in frequency, the styling shown is based on the analogy of parallel compounds. Full words come before parts of words made up of the same letters.
Solid compounds come first and are followed by hyphenated compounds and then open compounds.
A homograph derived from an earlier homograph by functional shift, however, follows its parent immediately, with the result that occasionally one homograph appears ahead of another that is older in usage. Even though the unrelated third entry kennel was used in English many years before the second, it follows the two related entries. The centered dots within entry words indicate division points at which a hyphen may be put at the end of a line of print or writing. No more than one division is, therefore, shown for an entry in this dictionary. When a main entry is followed by the word or and another spelling, the two spellings are equal variants.