OBS. 2.—­Many of these irregular words are not always used as adjectives, but oftener as nouns, adverbs, or prepositions.  The sense in which they are employed, will show to what class they belong.  The terms fore and hind, front and rear, right and left, in and out, high and low, top and bottom, up and down, upper and under, mid and after, all but the last pair, are in direct contrast with each other.  Many of them are often joined in composition with other words; and some, when used as adjectives of place, are rarely separated from their nouns:  as, inland, outhouse, mid-sea, after-ages.  Practice is here so capricious, I find it difficult to determine whether the compounding of these terms is proper or not.  It is a case about which he that inquires most, may perhaps be most in doubt.  If the joining of the words prevents the possibility of mistaking the adjective for a preposition, it prevents also the separate classification of the adjective and the noun, and thus in some sense destroys the former by making the whole a noun.  Dr. Webster writes thus:  “FRONTROOM, n. A room or apartment in the forepart of a house.  BACKROOM, n. A room behind the front room, or in the back part of the house.”—­Octavo Dict. So of many phrases by which people tell of turning things, or changing the position of their parts; as, inside out, outside in; upside down, downside up; wrong end foremost, but-end foremost; fore-part back, fore-end aft; hind side before, backside before.  Here all these contrasted particles seem to be adjectives of place or situation.  What grammarians in general would choose to call them, it is hard to say; probably, many would satisfy themselves with calling the whole “an adverbial phrase,”—­the common way of disposing of every thing which it is difficult to analyze.  These, and the following examples from Scott, are a fair specimen of the uncertainty of present usage: 

   “The herds without a keeper strayed,
    The plough was in mid-furrow staid.”—­Lady of the Lake.

    “The eager huntsman knew his bound,
    And in mid chase called off his hound.”—­Ibidem.

OBS. 3.—­For the chief points of the compass, we have so many adjectives, and so many modes of varying or comparing them, that it is difficult to tell their number, or to know which to choose in practice. (1.) North, south, east, and west, are familiarly used both as nouns and as adjectives.  From these it seems not improper to form superlatives, as above, by adding most; as, “From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild of southmost Abarim.”—­Milton.  “There are no rivulets or springs in the island of Feror, the westmost of the Canaries.”—­White’s