Hyphens
A hyphen ( - ) is a punctuation mark. It is used to join words and to separate syllables. It is often confused with the dashes, which are longer and have different functions, and with the minus sign ( – ), which is also longer.
The following words are hyphenated:
- decision-making
- face-to-face
- full-time
- part-time
- real-time
- re-mark
- up-to-date
- year-on-year
- fast-track
The following words are not hyphenated:
- 18 year old
- breakout
- coordinator
- cooperate
- lowercase
- onboarding
- online
- postgraduate
- resit
- undergraduate
- uppercase
- website
Hyphens are used:
- in compound expressions such as cost-benefit analysis, or weight-carrying, or compounds in attributive use (in front of the noun), as in an up-to-date list or the well-known performer
- to join a prefix to a proper name (e.g. anti-American)
- to avoid misunderstanding by distinguishing phrases such as twenty-odd people and twenty odd people.
- to clarify the use of a prefix, as in recovering from an illness and re-covering a chair
Hyphens should not be used:
- with most compound adjectives, where the meaning is clear and unambiguous without, e.g. civil rights movement, higher education provider
- for commonly used terms, e.g. black and white not black-and-white
- after adverbs ending in -ly, e.g. politically correct
- when referring to age, e.g. 18 year old students apply to university
See the grammar glossary for explanations of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.