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The hyphen-minus symbol -is the form of hyphen most commonly used in digital documents. On most keyboards, it is the only character that resembles a minus sign or a dash so it is also used for these. The name hyphen-minus derives from the original ASCII standard, where it was called hyphen–(minus).
In practice, most computer users type the hyphen-minus in place of the minus sign, compare −5 (minus sign) and -5 (hyphen-minus). If the minus sign is not available, I recommend to use the en-dash instead, compare “6 – 5” (en-dash) and “6 - 5” (hyphen-minus, too short).
Mar 11, 2011 · Can I use a hyphen as a minus sign? Sure, but it isn’t ideal. Note that the hyphen is a bit lower-down on the line of text than the minus sign and the dashes, plus it is very short – it looks too low and too small when used in mathematical expressions. More information about dashes: When to use the hyphen, dash, n-dash and m-dash.
Wikipedia uses four: the hyphen (sometimes called the hyphen-minus), the minus sign, the en dash, and the em dash. Hyphen ("-", MOS:HYPHEN) (actually the hyphen-minus character in ASCII or Unicode character sets) are used in many ways on Wikipedia. They are the only short, horizontal dash-like character available as a separate key on most ...
Apr 20, 2019 · A hyphen may be used as a minus sign in informal writing. An en dash is often used in formal texts, since typographically, the minus sign and en dash look very similar: the minus sign is slightly thinner than an en dash and has a little more space around it.
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Even the Unicode Standard regularly uses the hyphen-minus rather than the U+2010 hyphen. The hyphen-minus has limited use in indicating subtraction; for example, compare 4+3−2=5 (minus) and 4+3-2=5 (hyphen-minus) — in most typefaces, the glyph for hyphen-minus will not have the optimal width, thickness, or vertical position, whereas the ...
Jul 17, 2015 · The minus and hyphen sign are the same thing. A hyphen is a short, single-character line which connects word parts (i.e. ice-cream). A dash is a longer line—double the length of a hyphen—which indicates a break or an interruption in the thought. Dashes are used to set off part of a sentence.
