verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hyphenatesimple
-
hyphenatessimple
-
have hyphenatedperfect
-
has hyphenatedperfect
-
am hyphenatingprogressive
-
are hyphenatingprogressive
-
is hyphenatingprogressive
-
have been hyphenatingperfect progressive
-
has been hyphenatingperfect progressive
Past
-
hyphenatedsimple
-
had hyphenatedperfect
-
was hyphenatingprogressive
-
were hyphenatingprogressive
-
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
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
The Seventh Wish
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Not Like Other Girls
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
The most common solution is to hyphenate their last names or keep their own last names.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
The guild’s list of work a hyphenate cannot do includes the following:
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2023
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
I know this very well, as I never changed my last name to my husband’s—nor did I hyphenate our two names.
From Slate ● Mar. 28, 2021
Back then women didn’t keep their own names or hyphenate them.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
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
Writers who have dual positions — for example, writer-directors or writer-producers — are called hyphenates.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2023
This year’s diverse class includes musicians, artists, writers, activists, plenty of hyphenates and many, many academics.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2022
So many of the cast are hyphenates — creators, writers, directors, showrunners.
From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
But the majority consist of dominant mixtures, hyphenates, groups which are the species and varieties of the greater classes.
From The Glands Regulating Personality by Louis Berman M.D.
Her husband kept his last name, while she hyphenated her last name with his.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 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
To be an actor and a full-time parent and a full-time all those hyphenated titles — wife and daughter and community provider — is like serving in the military, I’ll tell you that.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2023
However, Geronimo was hyphenated at a line break, so Gero appeared on one line and nimo on the next, and unfortunately, Mr. Fairbain read it as Jair-oh-NEEM-oh.
From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg
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
The fact that he says he only “might” join you in hyphenating suggests to me that he doesn’t take that option very seriously.
From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2020
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 Ann Wilson
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
