Hyphen, en dash, em dash and minus sign: four lines, four jobs
The hyphen (U+002D) joins words. The en dash (U+2013) spans a range: pages 12 to 18. The em dash (U+2014) sets off a clause. The minus sign (U+2212) subtracts. They are four different characters, and the key on your keyboard produces only the first of them.
Last checked 2026-08-05.
At a glance
| Character | Code point | Name | HTML | When it is correct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | U+002D | Hyphen-Minus | - | Compound words, line breaks, phone numbers, code. The key on your keyboard. |
| – | U+2013 | En Dash | – | A range or a connection between equals: 1914 to 1918, the Berlin to Paris route. |
| — | U+2014 | Em Dash | — | Setting off a clause or an abrupt break in a sentence. |
| − | U+2212 | Minus Sign | − | Arithmetic. It aligns with the digits, which the hyphen does not. |
| ‑ | U+2011 | Non-Breaking Hyphen | ‑ | A hyphen that must not break across a line, such as in a part number. |
Why your keyboard only has one of them
The key marked with a dash produces U+002D, whose official Unicode name is hyphen-minus. That name is not an accident: it is a compromise character inherited from the typewriter and from ASCII, where there was room for one horizontal mark and it had to serve as hyphen, minus sign and dash all at once.
Unicode kept it for compatibility and added separate characters for each of the jobs it was pretending to do. That is why every one of the marks in the table above exists, and why the hyphen you type is technically correct for none of the typographic uses beyond joining words.
Ranges take an en dash, not an em dash
This is the single most common mistake in edited copy, and it goes both ways. A range takes an en dash: pages 12 to 18, Monday to Friday, the 1914 to 1918 war, the London to Brighton line. The en dash is doing the work of the word to.
An em dash does something entirely different: it interrupts a sentence, either to set off an aside or to mark an abrupt turn. It never means to, never means through, and never means between. Style guides disagree about whether an em dash should have spaces around it. They do not disagree about what it is for.
The minus sign matters more than people think
In a well-made font the minus sign U+2212 is drawn at the same height and weight as the horizontal bar of the plus sign, and centred on the same mathematical axis. The hyphen is shorter, lighter and lower. Set a column of negative numbers with hyphens and the marks do not line up with the plus signs above them, which is visible even to a reader who could not name the problem.
There is also a semantic cost. Search, sorting and any tool that parses numbers treat a hyphen and a minus sign as different characters. A spreadsheet that receives a hyphen where it expected a minus sign may read the whole cell as text.
How to stop your software choosing for you
Word and Google Docs both rewrite dashes as you type. Two hyphens between words become an en dash or an em dash depending on the spacing, and the substitution happens silently. In prose that is usually helpful. In a code sample, a file path or a command line it is a corruption that is hard to spot afterwards, because the character looks almost right.
In Word, the switch is under File, Options, Proofing, AutoCorrect Options, on the AutoFormat As You Type tab. In Google Docs it lives under Tools, then Preferences, then Substitutions. Pressing Ctrl+Z immediately after an unwanted substitution reverts just that one change and leaves the setting alone.
Frequently asked questions
Which dash do I use for a date range?
An en dash, U+2013. The em dash sets off a clause and has nothing to do with ranges.
Is the minus sign just a hyphen?
No. U+2212 is a separate character that aligns with the digits and with the plus sign. The hyphen is shorter and sits lower.
Should an em dash have spaces around it?
Style guides differ. American usage generally sets it closed up against the words, British usage often uses a spaced en dash instead. Either is defensible; mixing them within one document is not.