From Ray Fenwick‘s Hi: 30 Postcards, this powerful item:
What first caught my eye were the nounings in power of tickle and power of fondle. But there are also what might be V + N compounds, although some or all of them could be N + N, given a pervasive V/N ambiguity in English: squeeze power, scratch power, push power, stroke power, massage power. (On some V + N compounds, see this posting on cry face and its relatives and this mention of fish house, wash house, and the like.)
Otherwise, the power expressions are either compounds with nominal first elements (poking power, button pushing power), many of them with phrasal first elements (picking things up power, running fingers through hair power), or else phrases with postnominal PPs in of (power of drumming fingers on desk, power of rude gesturing, power of squeezing toothpaste). These are the two most common ways of combining a nominal dependent with a noun head in English.
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