hyphen

What it means

1. The symbol "‐", typically used to join two or more words to form a compound term, or to indicate that a word has been split at the end of a line.

   As the proud owner of my very own hyphen in a lovingly crafted surname, I have an especial soft spot for this most confusing of punctuation marks.

   2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 56

2. figurativelySomething which links two things of greater significance than itself.

   Cunliffe and Karunanayake (2013) developed Fine's notion to introduce potential hyphen spaces that are deeply implicated and reciprocally influential in relationships between researchers and the researched.

   2019 June 20, Noof Aldaheri, Gustavo Guzman, and Heather Stewart, “Tales of the Unknown and Entanglement”, in Prof. Anthony Stacey, editor, ECRM 2019 18th European Conference on Research Methods in Business and Management, Academic Conferences and publishing limited, →ISBN, page 26

   1. figurativelyAn enclosed walkway or passage that connects two buildings.

      Those were the “hyphens,” the passageways that connected the wings of the mansion to its center.

      2012, James M Cain, The Cocktail Waitress

      2 more examples

      The hyphens were added, joining the structures into one building, which now measures just over two hundred feet long.

      1997, Peter Beney, The Majesty of Colonial Williamsburg, page 156

      Construction details for the hyphens, or "connecting wings" as they were called by the contractors, were included in the contractors' specifications, as follows:

      2010, Mary L. Kwas, A Pictorial History of Arkansas's Old State House

In a sentence

As the proud owner of my very own hyphen in a lovingly crafted surname, I have an especial soft spot for this most confusing of punctuation marks.

2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 56

Where it comes from

1. Ancient Greekῠ̔φέν“in one, as a single word”
2. Late Latinhyphen
3. Englishhyphen

Learned borrowing from Late Latin hyphen, from Ancient Greek ῠ̔φέν (hŭphén, “in one, as a single word”), univerbation of ῠ̔φ’ ἕν (hŭph’ hén, “under one”), from ῠ̔πο- (hŭpo-, “under”) + ἕν (hén, “one”), neuter of εἷς (heîs, “one”).