em dash

American  

noun

Printing.

1. a dash one em long.

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em dash British  

noun

1. printing a dash (—) one em long

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Compare meaning

How does em-dash compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• em dash vs. en dash
• hyphen vs. em dash
• em dash vs. semicolon

Example Sentences

The em dash, a punctuation mark a bit longer than a hyphen that denotes a long pause, has become the black light on the hotel sheets for AI-shamers—a sign that an essay, a letter or any kind of written work was written by a machine and not by a human.

From The Wall Street Journal

“The em dash is now a GPT-ism and is not advisable unless you want people to think your writing is the output of a LLM,” wrote a user named energy123 on Hacker News.

From The Wall Street Journal

Because I, a professional writer, love—love—love—an em dash.

From The Wall Street Journal

Because more than any other punctuation mark, the em dash is deeply human.

From The Wall Street Journal

And he admits it, naturally, with an em dash.

From The Wall Street Journal