‐

See also: –, -, −, —, and 一

Translingual

Punctuation mark

‐ (English name hyphen)

1. Used to separate certain pieces of text.
   1. Separates syllables.

      syl‐lab‐i‐fi‐ca‐tion

   2. Separates letters.

      W‐O‐R‐D spells "word"

   3. Used to split a word across a line break (called hyphenation).

      We, therefore, the represen‐

      tatives of the United States

   4. Used to mark a point where a morpheme (a suffix, a prefix, etc.) is supposed to be attached to a word.

      Happiness ends with -ness.

2. Used to connect certain pieces of text.
   1. Used when joining prefixes and suffixes according to stylistic rules, often to avoid confusion in pronunciation or meaning

      ultra‐ambitious (to indicate both aes are pronounced)

      I must re‐press the shirt (to avoid confusion with repress)

   2. Used to connect words in compound terms.

      freeze‐dry

   3. Used to connect words in a compound modifier according to various stylistic rules.

      "real‐world examples" (but "examples are from the real world")

   4. Used to indicate common parts of repeated compounds.

      nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century

   5. Used to connect the year, the month and the day, in dates.

      1789-07-14 the date of the first Bastille Day

3. Indicates stuttering.

   W‐w‐would you marry me?

4. Indicates an interruption in speech.

   A: Will you be the‐

   B: Yes! You don't have to ask!

5. Used to hide letters.

   G‐d for God

Usage notes

Compare:

• ‐ (regular hyphen)
• ‑ (non-breaking hyphen)

Most text systems consider a hyphen to be a word boundary and a valid point at which to break a line when flowing text. However, this is not always desirable behavior. The non-breaking hyphen looks identical to the regular hyphen, but is not treated as a word boundary.

The similar looking hyphen-minus (-) is used more frequently, but is used for many purposes (as a hyphen, minus sign, and dash). The hyphen symbol is therefore more specific.

In American English, compound words are formed more liberally than in British English. Hyphenated compound nouns are also much more common in colloquial American English.

Synonyms

• (all sense): - (hyphen-minus), often used for its ease.
• (distinguish syllables, US): · (interpunct)
• (hide letters): – (en-dash)
• (connecting compounds): – (en-dash), when the constituent parts already contain hyphens.

Derived terms

• ⸚

Conjunction

‐

1. Used to join the components of coordinative compounds, with equal components.

   secretary-general; yellow-green; a here-today-gone-tomorrow attitude; kitchen-dinette-office

2. Used to join the components of subordinative compounds, with a dominant component or head.

   a has-been; cholesterol-free; short-changing

Synonyms

• (joining components of coordinative compounds): and, hyphen or -hyphen-, cum or -cum-, /, slash

See also

• ‐ on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Punctuation

• apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ )
• curly brackets or braces (US) ( { } )
• square brackets or brackets (US) ( [ ] )
• colon ( : )
• comma ( , )
• dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
• ellipsis ( … )
• exclamation mark ( ! )
• fraction slash ( ⁄ )
• guillemets ( « » ) ( ‹ › )
• hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
• interpunct ( · )
• interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
• brackets or parentheses (US, Canada) ( ( ) )
• full stop or period (US, Canada) ( . )
• question mark ( ? )
• quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ‚ ) ( “ ” „ )
• quotation marks (informal, computing) ( " ) ( ' )
• semicolon ( ; )
• slash or stroke (UK) ( / )
• space ( ] [ )