hyphen
noun
hy·phen
| \ ˈhī-fən
\
\
Definition of hyphen
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a punctuation mark - used especially to divide or to compound words, word elements, or numbers
hyphen
verb
hyphened;
hyphening;
hyphens
Definition of hyphen (Entry 2 of 2)
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Other Words from hyphen
Noun
hyphenless
\ ˈhī-fən-ləs
\
adjective
\
adjective
Examples of hyphen in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web: Noun
Grammarians will applaud the lack of a hyphen in sport climbing; competitors will climb walls—not another sport. — SI.com, "One Year Out: What to Watch Ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics," 24 July 2019 Pennsylvania authorities released a mug shot of Rivas-Clase that strongly resembles the suspect in an image provided by Dominican authorities, who provided the same name but without the hyphen. — Washington Post, "The Latest: US officials: 2nd Ortiz shooting suspect wanted," 14 June 2019 The process purges voters from the rolls if their registration paperwork doesn’t exactly match their information on government documents, down to mistakes like missing hyphens or middle initials. — Ranjani Chakraborty, Vox, "Why American voter registrations are disappearing," 5 Nov. 2018 Even something as simple as a missing hyphen or typo could throw the whole thing off, leading to 53,000 voter registration applications to be held up at the Secretary of State’s Office. — Ella Nilsen, Vox, "This Democrat thinks voting rights should be one of the House’s first big priorities in January," 11 Dec. 2018 Under the law, small errors like a space or hyphen between names could be used to discount a ballot. — Isabella Gomez, Teen Vogue, "2018 Midterms: Allegations of Voter Suppression Arise in Georgia’s Governor’s Race," 7 Nov. 2018 The bank’s vendor-screening system failed to identify the customers, the Treasury said, noting that the system had failed to connect customer names that had hyphens, initials or additional detail as potential matches to names on the sanctions list. — Samuel Rubenfeld, WSJ, "JPMorgan Chase Settles Allegations It Violated U.S. Sanctions," 5 Oct. 2018 That company was Micro-Soft, which shed its hyphen the following year. — Peter Bright, Ars Technica, "Paul Allen—Microsoft co-founder, Seahawks owner, and space pioneer—dies at 65," 16 Oct. 2018 Don’t spell Japanese-American with that hyphen, brother. — Gilbert Garcia, San Antonio Express-News, "SBOE debate highlights the cynical stigma of the hyphen," 16 June 2018Recent Examples on the Web: Verb
Normally, closed caption subtitling bleeps words in a variety of different ways: phrases, such as (bleep), [expletive], or [censored] may be used, though sometimes hyphens or asterisks are substituted instead (f–k, f---, or f*** are all examples. — Ace Ratcliff, SELF, "I Rely On Closed Captions to Enjoy a Show And I Don't Appreciate Netflix's Way of Censoring Them," 10 July 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'hyphen.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for hyphen
hyphen
noun
English Language Learners Definition of hyphen
: a punctuation mark - that is used to connect words or parts of words
See the full definition for hyphen in the English Language Learners Dictionary
hyphen
noun
hy·phen
| \ ˈhī-fən
\
\
Kids Definition of hyphen
(Entry 1 of 2)
: a mark - used to divide or to connect words or word elements
hyphen
verb
hyphened;
hyphening
Kids Definition of hyphen (Entry 2 of 2)
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