What does hyphen mean?
Word: Hyphen
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Hyphen means a short line used to join two words, or parts of words, as in twenty-five.
Word origin: Comes through Late Latin from Greek, where a two-word phrase meant 'together' or 'in one'.
How do you spell hyphen?
Syllables: hy - phen
Tricky part: The f sound is spelt ph, as in phone and graph. Students who spell it the way it sounds write hyfen.
Watch out for: hyfen, hypen
Memory tip: Phone, photo and hyphen all make their f sound with ph: a phone line links two callers, and a hyphen links two words.
Hyphen in a sentence
Example 1: Do not forget the hyphen in mother-in-law.
Example 2: The editor removed the hyphen and printed the word as one.
Example 3: When a word does not fit at the end of a line, you can split it with a hyphen.
Fun Fact
In 2007 the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary dropped the hyphens from about 16,000 words, so bumble-bee became bumblebee and ice-cream became ice cream.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell Spies
Choose the misspelt word/s in the given sentence:
Our English teacher reminded us to put a hiphen in words such as seventy-two and sister-in-law whenever we write them in our essays.
a) only hiphen
b) hiphen and reminded
c) reminded and essays
d) only essays
Show answer
a) only hiphen. The punctuation mark begins with hy, the same y as in hydrant; reminded and essays are correct.
Word Puzzle
Match the words with their meanings:
1. hyphen 2. colon 3. apostrophe a. a mark that shows letters are missing, as in can't b. a mark that ties the parts of a compound word together, as in brother-in-law c. a mark of two dots, one above the other, often used before a list
a) 1-b, 2-a, 3-c
b) 1-b, 2-c, 3-a
c) 1-c, 2-a, 3-b
d) 1-a, 2-b, 3-c
Show answer
b) 1-b, 2-c, 3-a. A hyphen links, a colon introduces a list, and an apostrophe stands in for missing letters.
Sound Check
In which word is 'ph' pronounced differently?
a) phrase
b) hyphen
c) dolphin
d) shepherd
Show answer
d) shepherd. In shepherd the p and h belong to different parts, shep and herd, so there is no f sound.
Word Fusion
Choose the two parts that make a word meaning 'to join words with a short line':
1. ous 2. hyphen 3. ful 4. ate 5. ment 6. less
a) 2 and 5
b) 3 and 1
c) 2 and 6
d) 2 and 4
Show answer
d) 2 and 4. Hyphen + ate gives hyphenate; none of the other endings makes a real word with it.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. In which of these is the hyphen used correctly?
a) a well-known-singer
b) a-well known singer
c) a well known-singer
d) a well-known singer
Show answer
d) a well-known singer
2. A hyphen is shorter than which other mark that also looks like a line?
a) a comma
b) a dash
c) a full stop
d) a colon
Show answer
b) a dash
