verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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hyphenatesimple
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hyphenatessimple
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have hyphenatedperfect
-
has hyphenatedperfect
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am hyphenatingprogressive
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are hyphenatingprogressive
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is hyphenatingprogressive
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have been hyphenatingperfect progressive
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has been hyphenatingperfect progressive
Past
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hyphenatedsimple
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had hyphenatedperfect
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was hyphenatingprogressive
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were hyphenatingprogressive
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had been hyphenatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hyphenate
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing hyphenate
This Week In Culture: November 16–22, 2019
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The Seventh Wish
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Not Like Other Girls
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Earlier this year, Martin, who is from Toronto, spent a dozen years in London before moving to L.A., pulled another hyphenate out of their hat by releasing an indie rock album.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2025
Hello Carolyn: Our son’s wife of several years chose to hyphenate our last name with her maiden name.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 4, 2022
“We’d just talk about ourselves and our family history, but we were supposed to be writing,” said Ms. Demirdjian, who will hyphenate her surname.
From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2021
Some people on Twitter shared a clip of King interviewing Julia Louis-Dreyfus where he asked her about having a "man’s name," seemingly mistaking the hyphenate for a middle name.
From Fox News ● Jan. 25, 2021
Back then women didn’t keep their own names or hyphenate them.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
It was wonderful to be seen that way and have my skill set and my hyphenates acknowledged and not having to compartmentalize because he sees me as a creator, much like he’s a creator.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 13, 2024
With thousands of social media followers, the Nebraska-born model-actor-writer can add “influencer” to her multiple hyphenates, but she says today’s emphasis on “likes” has a downside.
From Washington Times ● Nov. 22, 2023
He now goes at these conversations as a peer and one of comedy’s most prodigious hyphenates.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 2, 2022
So many of the cast are hyphenates — creators, writers, directors, showrunners.
From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
"The War and the Poets" does not get the goats of hyphenates of any sort—I gave it in Toronto and in Notre Dame.
From The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces by Kilmer, Joyce
Throughout the book, Mr. Pence deploys that hyphenated label—“the Trump-Pence administration”—to describe Mr. Trump’s first term in office.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
Versions with and without the hyphen have been used in the past, but a 1960 Privy Council announcement used the hyphenated version, which will be used from now on.
From BBC ● Nov. 11, 2025
Such hyphenated Americans, he said, felt a “degree of accepted and reasonable pride,” and had succeeded in connecting “their heritage to their mother country” and also to “where they are now” in America.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2024
The claim also defended Villanueva’s use of the inspector general’s full name, noting that his longer, hyphenated name is included on some public records websites as well as on his desk plaque.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2024
With a hyphenated surname, she would no longer fit into the window of a business envelope.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
As Im notes, an increasing number of women do not change their names when they get married — about 20%, with another 10% hyphenating or otherwise incorporating their original name into a blended last name.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2023
Instead of hyphenating or taking one or the other’s last name, the couple chose to create a new one of their own.
From New York Times ● Nov. 19, 2021
We have a problem in the UK with people hyphenating their job roles.
From The Verge ● Sep. 3, 2021
I did not change my last name after we got married; I thought about hyphenating, but ultimately decided I didn’t want to—my name is my name and I don’t see a need to change it.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2021
It didn't take them long to decide hyphenating all the names together alphabetically was much too unwieldy to work.
From The Alembic Plot A Terran Empire novel by Wilson, Ann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
