The hyphen is used to indicate a break of some kind that occurs in text, such as a line break on a page. When a large word is broken into two parts in text, a hyphen is placed between two syllables to "break" the word.
A hyphen is also used to connect words together. For instance, you may want to join two words together to make a creative compound adjective, adverb, or verb:
- I recommend using a color-coded system for organizing homework assignments.
- We took a ten-minute walk around the park.
- My granddaughter flip-flopped across the floor.
- The region received some much-needed rain yesterday.
Using Hyphens With Numbers
- Use a hyphen to type out a compound number such as twenty-two.
- Use a hyphen to spell out a fraction such as two-thirds.
The hyphen is created by typing the minus key on any Windows-based keyboard.
Note: there is a difference between a hyphen and a dash. To create a dash, type two hyphens in a row. Do not space between the hyphens.
See a definition of hyphen.
