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The hyphen ‐ is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. [1]The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash –, em dash — and others), which are wider, or with the minus sign −, which is also wider and usually drawn a little higher to match the crossbar in the plus sign +.
Hyphen: Dash, Hyphen-minus-Hyphen-minus: Dash, Hyphen, Minus sign ☞ Index: Manicule, Obelus (medieval usage) · Interpunct: Full-stop, Period, Decimal separator, Dot operator ‽ Interrobang (combined 'Question mark' and 'Exclamation mark') Inverted question and exclamation marks ¡ Inverted exclamation mark: Exclamation mark, Interrobang ...
A hyphen is not a dash. Hyphens are used within words or to join words, but not in punctuating the parts of a sentence. Use an en dash (–) with before, and a space after – or use an em dash (—) without spaces (see Wikipedia:How to make dashes). Avoid using two hyphens (--) to make a dash, and avoid using a hyphen as a minus sign.
Browsers may break words at hyphens. A non-breaking hyphen ‑ may be used to prevent this occurring, as in: As seen on page C‑2 of the newspaper. This code generates "page C‑2" just like the plain code "page C-2", but prevents a line break at the hyphen.
Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "two-thirds majority", but if numerator or denominator are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate two thirds of the pie.") Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens:
Another kind of hyphen is the non‑breaking hyphen, available in the Wiki code as {}. This character has the sole purpose to be a non-breaking word joiner. Unlike the hyphen-minus, the dashes and minus sign do not have any special role in the MediaWiki markup language.
The double hyphen was never used in typography because typeset fonts, like the digital fonts used on computers, include em dashes. New: The double hyphen ("--"), used by some writers to represent an em dash, is not used on Wikipedia. The double hyphen is a carry-over from the typewriter, which does not have an em-dash key.
Wikipedia uses four: the hyphen (sometimes called the hyphen-minus), the minus sign, the en dash, and the em dash. Hyphen (- or -, MOS:HYPHEN; known as the hyphen-minus in ASCII and Unicode) are used in many ways on Wikipedia. They are the only short, horizontal dash-like character available as a separate key on most keyboards.