Hyphens
The short line that joins words together, and how one hyphen can change the whole meaning.
The answer
A hyphen (-) is a short line that joins words or parts of words, so the reader knows they belong together, as in a man-eating shark.
Examples
Look out for the man-eating shark!
The national curriculum’s example: a shark that eats people.
My five-year-old cousin can already read.
The chair was so worn that we had to re-cover it.
Re-cover means cover again. Recover means get better.
She is a well-known author.
There were forty-two children on the trip.
Compound numbers such as twenty-one and ninety-nine take a hyphen.
How to spot it
- Check whether two words work together to describe a noun: a man-eating shark is a shark that eats people.
- A hyphen has no space either side.
- Some prefixes take a hyphen to avoid confusion, or when two vowels would meet: re-cover, re-enter, co-own.
The common mistake
Leaving out a hyphen that changes the meaning.
‘A man eating shark’ is a man eating some shark. ‘A man-eating shark’ is a shark that eats people.
When it is taught
- First met
- Year 6
- On the pupil word list
- Year 6, as “hyphen”
Year 6 learns how hyphens can be used to avoid ambiguity (man eating shark, man-eating shark; recover, re-cover). The Year 5 and 6 spelling appendix adds hyphens after prefixes such as co- and re-.
Try a question
Explain how the hyphen changes the meaning.
There are twenty-odd children in the hall.
Show the answer
Answer: Twenty-odd means about twenty. Without the hyphen, twenty odd children means twenty strange children.
The hyphen joins twenty and odd into one describing word, so odd no longer describes the children.
Related terms
More grammar terms
Questions parents ask
Is a hyphen the same as a dash?
No. A hyphen is short and joins words with no spaces (well-known). A dash is longer, has a space either side, and separates parts of a sentence.
Do numbers need hyphens?
Compound numbers such as twenty-one, thirty-six and ninety-nine take a hyphen. Round tens such as thirty and forty are single words, so they have none.
Is it co-ordinate or coordinate?
Both are seen. The national curriculum writes co-ordinate, with a hyphen after the prefix co-.
Grammar turns up in 11+ English too
Many 11+ English papers include grammar and punctuation questions alongside comprehension. The free diagnostic checks maths, English and both kinds of reasoning, and shows what to practise next. No card is required.