Hyphens

The hyphen is a mark of punctuation that joins words into a single unit.

A hyphen (-) is a shorter mark than a dash (—). Hyphens join; dashes separate.

Hyphens are used in the following situations:

• with compound words

• with compound modifiers

• with fractions and compound numbers

• with prefixes

• to resolve ambiguity

• to divide words at line endings

Exercises:

The hyphen 1

The hyphen 2

Related topic:

Dash