Skip to main content

Hyphen Use

OWL logo

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.



Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.


Summary:

A comprehensive rundown on the proper use of the hyphen.

Two words brought together as a compound may be written separately, written as one word, or connected by hyphens. For example, three modern dictionaries all have the same listings for the following compounds:

hair stylist
hairsplitter
hair-raiser

Another modern dictionary, however, lists hairstylist, not hair stylist. Compounding is obviously in a state of flux, and authorities do not always agree in all cases, but the uses of the hyphen offered here are generally agreed upon.

  1. Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun:
    a one-way street
    chocolate-covered peanuts
    well-known author
    However, when compound modifiers come after a noun, they are not hyphenated:
    The peanuts were chocolate covered.
    The author was well known.
  2. Use a hyphen with compound numbers:
    forty-six
    sixty-three
    Our much-loved teacher was sixty-three years old.
  3. Use a hyphen to avoid confusion or an awkward combination of letters:
    re-sign a petition (vs. resign from a job)
    semi-independent (but semiconscious)
    shell-like (but childlike)
  4. Use a hyphen with the prefixes ex- (meaning former), self-, all-; with the suffix -elect; between a prefix and a capitalized word; and with figures or letters:
    ex-husband
    self-assured
    mid-September
    all-inclusive
    mayor-elect
    anti-American
    T-shirt
    pre-Civil War
    mid-1980s
  5. Use a hyphen to divide words at the end of a line if necessary, and make the break only between syllables:
    pref-er-ence
    sell-ing
    in-di-vid-u-al-ist
  6. For line breaks, divide already-hyphenated words only at the hyphen:
    mass-
    produced
    self-
    conscious
  7. For line breaks in words ending in -ing, if a single final consonant in the root word is doubled before the suffix, hyphenate between the consonants; otherwise, hyphenate at the suffix itself:
    plan-ning
    run-ning
    driv-ing
    call-ing
  8. Never put the first or last letter of a word at the end or beginning of a line, and don't put two-letter suffixes at the beginning of a new line:
    lovely (Do not separate in a way which leaves ly beginning a new line.)
    eval-u-ate (Separate only on either side of the u; do not leave the initial e- at the end of a line.)