What is a Word?

The topic of what a word is came up at lunch when Ealasaid mentioned that in German, there is a word for Christmas tree light repairman. I pointed out that there is a word for that in English, too. "What is it?" she asked.
"Christmas tree light repairman," I said.
So then the discussion turned to whether Christmas tree light repairman is a word—ignoring, strangely, the side topic of whether it's a sexist term.
The relevant definition in my old Webster's New World Dictionary is:

1a) a speech sound, or series of them, serving to communicate meaning and consisting of at least one base morpheme with or without prefixes or suffixes; unit of language between the morpheme and the sentence b) a letter or group of letters representing such a unit of language, written or printed usually in solid or hyphenated form.

This definition, it seems to me, suggests that a word is a single group of letters with no spaces—in other words, that Christmas tree light repairman is more than one word—but does not absolutely preclude the treatment of Christmas tree light repairman as a single word. A word is printed "usually" in solid or hyphenated form, but maybe not always.
At this point, I put forth the idea that Christmas tree light repairman might be a single term if not a single word.
A term, of course is:

7 any word or phrase used in a definite or precise sense; expression.

So we are placing Christmas tree light repairman squarely in with the terms, but drawing a distinction between a word and a phrase. So, what is a phrase?

4 Gram. a sequence of two or more words conveying a single thought or forming a distinct part of a sentence but not containing a subject and predicate.

Still no guidance about how to clearly delineate the difference between a word and a phrase!
I think Christmas tree light repairman is a word because it refers to a single discrete object that cannot be further reduced. The definition of "word" does not rule out this interpretation. But what do you think, dear reader? Is it a word or just a phrase?
Found along the way:

tarsometatarsus/tastiness—toe cheese?
tat/tax-deductible—a carney worker's shelter
phase/pheromone—why she seems so attractive this particular week

That's all for now.

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Comments

December 05, 2007 - 14:41:42
Your blog is a word.

December 05, 2007 - 14:47:19
Blog up.
Peter S. Conrad

December 07, 2007 - 15:03:46
A-BRO BRO-EDI EDI-HAS HAT-MAR MAR-PAR PAR-SNO SOA-ZWI
POP

December 07, 2007 - 15:17:49
I said a hip hop, the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop-a you dont stop the rockin' to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
Peter S. Conrad