Hyphen, en dash, em dash or minus?
Hyphen (-) is the short mark on your keyboard. It joins words (well-known, twenty-one) and splits a word at the end of a line.
En dash (–) is about the width of the letter n. Use it for ranges and connections: pages 10–20, 9:00–5:00, the New York–London flight.
Em dash (—) is about the width of the letter m. It sets off a break or an aside in a sentence: "The answer—if there is one—can wait." Chicago style writes it without spaces, AP style puts a space on each side, and British writers often use a spaced en dash – like this – instead.
Minus sign (−) is a math character as wide as the plus sign, so 5 − 3 lines up neatly in formulas and tables. The keyboard hyphen is a common stand-in, but − is the correct sign.
Less common dashes
The figure dash ‒ has the width of a digit and is meant for numbers such as phone numbers (555‒0199). The non-breaking hyphen ‑ keeps a hyphenated word together on one line. The horizontal bar ― is a quotation dash that introduces quotes and dialogue in some typesetting traditions. For the extra-long two-em ⸺ and three-em ⸻ dashes, see the long dash symbol page.
How to type dashes
On a Mac, Option + - types an en dash and Option + Shift + - an em dash. On Windows, hold Alt and type 0150 for – or 0151 for — on the number pad.
In Microsoft Word, type two hyphens between two words (word--word) and Word replaces them with an em dash; type a space, a hyphen and a space between words and you get an en dash. Word also has Ctrl + Num - for – and Ctrl + Alt + Num - for —. On iPhone, press and hold the hyphen key to choose – or —, and Smart Punctuation turns a double hyphen into — as you type.
In HTML, use –, — and −. In LaTeX, type -- for an en dash and --- for an em dash. For long decorative lines rather than punctuation, see horizontal line symbols.