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Should you hyphenate a word?
What are hyphenated adjectives?
Do you hyphenate a number?
Why is a compound word hyphenated?
For very short words (such as no-no, so-so), words in which both elements may have primary stress (tip-top), and for injections (tsk-tsk), the hyphenated styling is more common.
- The Infamous Hyphen
- Hyphenated Numbers and Fractions
- Compound Adjectives with Hyphens
- Compound Nouns with and Without Hyphens
- Hyphenated Phrases with More Than One Hyphen
- Hyphenating Verbs Modifies Their Meaning
- Non-Mandatory Use of The Hyphen
A hyphen—like many other punctuation marks—should help us to navigate between the words and sentences of our texts. Luckily, there are some clearly defined cases that automatically invoke the use of a hyphen. In other examples, a hyphenis not mandatory, but helpful for the readers. Let’s have a look at the distinct instances first. Basically, hyphe...
Try to remember to hyphenate when spelling out numbers between twenty-one and ninety-nine. Every one of them has a hyphen between the first, and the second digit. Fractions and ordinal numbers require a hyphen, too.
Whenever you encounter an adjective that consists of two parts (an adverb + an adjective, or two adjectives), its spelling primarily depends on the position of this construction. Compare these two sentences: If the adjective comes right before a noun, it becomes hyphenated in order to avoid possible confusion. If, on the other hand, the two-part ad...
These nearly always come separated from the noun by a hyphen: One part of this two-tier construction may also be a digit, a special character or a single letter: Some compound words appear in their hyphenated form in order to distinguish them from other similar words. Other compound words you’ll never find with a hyphen:
Whenever you want to use a modifier that consists of more than two components, we suggest using more than one hyphen. Just connect every single word with its neighbors, and you’re good to go. Remember: you can identify these cases by simply omitting one component. If it only makes sense with it, you want to indicate this conjunction by hyphens.
It’s not very common, but there are a few examples with hyphenated verbs. These may occur in only one specific combination or in various forms, such as verbs beginning in “double-.”
The following cases show examples of a more or less voluntary use of the hyphen. When you decide to include a hyphen, this generally helps to avoid confusion caused by ambiguity. For compound nouns (such as nationalities), there are a couple of examples that might require a hyphen: Occasionally, a hyphen supports the distinction between two homogra...
Nov 19, 2018 · Some style manuals (but not this site) recommend that phrasal adjectives be hyphenated regardless of their position, and a few such expressions (such as far-reaching) are always hyphenated regardless of position or style authority.
Apr 21, 2019 · Updated October 11, 2023. Use a hyphen (‐) to connect words and indicate that they together carry a single meaning or together describe another word (e.g., forty-two, five-minute break, state-of-the-art facilities ).
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Hyphens are used to connect two words—or compounds—that modify a noun (ex: award-winning actor, brown-eyed girl). While different style guides offer up different recommendations on how and when to hyphenate, the key to keeping your writing smooth is to not overhyphenate.
May 13, 2019 · Only hyphenate when the phrasal adjective comes before the noun: hard-hearted Hannah, as opposed to, “Hannah is hard hearted.”. Also, do not hyphenate when the first word is an adverb ending in -ly, as in, a radically different design. And where two or more hyphenated compound terms share the same word, you can use the shared word just once ...
Nov 27, 2020 · 3 min read. ·. Nov 27, 2020. Image from PDPics from Pixabay. In my post “ When You Should Hyphenate, Open, or Close a Compound Word ,” I explain a few rules, including: When an...
