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hyphenate

/ˌhaɪfəˈneɪt/
IPA guide

Other forms: hyphenated; hyphenates; hyphenating

When you hyphenate a word, you use a punctuation mark that resembles a dash to connect two words into one or separate a word's syllables. To write the word old-fashioned, you have to hyphenate it.

When you write words like deep-fried and record-breaking, you hyphenate them, or add a hyphen to join their separate parts into one word. Another common reason to hyphenate words is when you reach the end of a line and need to split the word you're writing into two parts, continuing the second part on the next line. The rule here is to hyphenate between complete syllables.

Definitions of hyphenate
  1. verb
    divide or connect with a hyphen
    hyphenate these words and names”
    synonyms: hyphen
    see moresee less
    type of:
    spell, write
    write or name the letters that comprise the conventionally accepted form of (a word or part of a word)
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