Pocket-handkerchief

Well, bless.  “Pocket handkerchief” has its own OED entry – not hyphenated – and means not only a handkerchief for carrying in the pocket (where else might one carry a handkerchief?), but a small area (as of land), or a small, light sail such as a jib or topsail.

  • 02.020 and found he had come without a pocket-handkerchief!
  • 02.024 and I have left my pocket-handkerchief behind,
  • 02.025 You will have to manage without pocket-handkerchiefs,
  • 02.027 He had brought a lot of pocket-handkerchiefs,
  • 12.008 without a pocket-handkerchief
  • 12.008 He had not had a pocket-handkerchief

“pocket handkerchief, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 24 July 2015.

Pitch-dark

  • 08.005 It then became pitch-dark –
  • 08.005 not what you call pitch-dark,

This word appears in only one paragraph in the whole book… twice.  And Chapter 8 is famous for not having many hyphenated words.  The word has its own OED  sub-entry with and without hyphens in the examples.

“pitch, n.1.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/144680. Accessed 19 September 2017.

Pine-woods

  • 07.117 in the direction of the pine-woods on the east side of the Misty Mountain
  • 14.040 right to the pinewoods of the Misty Mountains;

I am intrigued that Tolkien uses it in the same sense of “woods of pine trees” – even the same woods – with two spellings.  The OED has it hyphenated, one-word, and two-words.

“pinewood, n. and adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/144125. Accessed 19 September 2017.

Pine-tree

  • 01.083 and hear the pine-trees
  • 01.123 and the pine-trees on the Mountain creaking
  • 03.012 and the smell of the pine-trees made him drowsy,
  • 06.060 out of his pine-tree.

This word is found as a single word, as a hyphenated word, and as a two-word word in OED.  It is only found hyphenated in The Hobbit.

“pine tree, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/144123. Accessed 19 September 2017.