Is it usual to use “full-cry” as a stand-alone adjective?

Question

Maureen Dowd’s article titled “Spellbound by Blondes, Hot and Icy” appearing in December 1st NY-Times jumps from Alfred Hitchcock’s favor of blonde actresses to the dispute of Hillary Clinton’s responsibility for ill-handling of Benghazi attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.> “While Republicans continue their ***full-cry*** pursuit of Susan Rice, the> actual secretary of state has eluded blame, even though Benghazi is> her responsibility. The assault happened on Hillary’s watch, at her> consulate, with her ambassador. Given that we figured out a while ago> that the Arab Spring could be perilous as well as promising, why> hadn’t the State Department developed new norms for security in that> part of the world?”As I didn’t know the word, ‘full-cry,’ I consulted Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford online dictionary.None of them registers “full-cry,” but for Cambridge Dictionary carrying “in full cry” as an idiom meaning ‘taking continuously about in a noisy or eager way’.Google Ngram shows neither “full cry” nor “full-cry,” while showing incidences of “in full cry” since cir 1840. Its usage continues to decline all the way. Though I surmise “full-cry pursuit” means ferocious and tenacious pursuit from the definition of “in full cry” by Cambridge Dictionary, I wonder if the word “full-cry” is received as a stand-alone adjective as used by Maureen Dowd. Can “full-cry” be used as an adjective or a noun sui generis? If yes, is it always necessary to combine 'full' and 'cry' with a hyphen?

Answer 1

A compound adjective is typically formed by using hyphens, as here with Dowd’s use of ‘full-cry’. Even though some hyphenated compound adjectives might seem awkward, the rules of English allow them. “She decided to wear her girls-night-out dress to the wedding.”