en dash
- noun
- /ɛn dæʃ/
- Specialized
:
guion en
- "Actual hyphen" (U+2010) and "actual minus" (U+2212) are *both* separate characters, as are the en dash (U+2013) and em dash (U+2014).
Examples
-
In academic writing, the en dash is often preferred for date ranges, e.g., 1995–2005.
-
The en dash is commonly used to show ranges, such as 10–20.
-
You can use an en dash to connect related items, like a father–son duo.
Synonyms
22
2.8
A long mark used to show a pause or break in a sentence
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is fully compositional: 'en' denotes a specific typographic unit (half an em) and 'dash' is a punctuation mark, so an 'en dash' is simply a dash of en width used to indicate ranges or connections. Although the term is technical, its meaning follows a straightforward size+object pattern that a learner who knows both constituents can infer.
Etymology
En dash comes from old printers who made a short dash the same width as the letter n. They called that size an en, so the en dash is used between numbers or dates to 'show a range' or a close 'connection'.