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by card_zero 475 days ago
Yeah, private detective is an open compound:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)

At least I think that's the right term (I hunted around for one that fits). So, is private spacecraft also a compound? Is it idiomatic? Maybe. Another example is little black dress, where "my new little black dress" sounds right and "my little new black dress" seems to refer to a different kind of garment.