What is a hyphenated word?

Answer 1

A "hyphenated" word is where two words are not conjoined, for clarity or because they represent the same part of speech. Prefixes that are attached to existing proper nouns. "pre-Reconstruction". * Modifiers are hyphenated when they represent a single idea, e.g. "well-respected", not well and respected. Similarly, nouns such as "great-grandfather" not a great grandfather. And the title "editor-in-chief". Numerals used as modifiers are combined with hyphens, e.g. "fifty-six dollars", "one-hundred-and-one Dalmatians". ---- * Where dates or times are separated, or where a multi-word proper noun is modified, the so-called "en dash" is used, wider than a hyphen. It is a special character not on standard keyboards (and not on this answer form) Example : pre-Civil War or 1900-2000 (longer dash where the hyphens are) * To include a parenthetical thought within a sentence, an even longer dash, the "em dash" is used. Example : "He looked up - an instinctive reaction - and saw the plane." (big dashes, not hyphens)