| 1. The hyphen is used to indicate that a long word has been broken off at the end of a line. (You should avoid such word splitting whenever possible. If it is unavoidable, try to split the word into two roughly equal parts, and make sure you split it at an obvious boundary).
| His pass-port being lost, John could not avoid deportation.
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| 2. The hyphen is often used between a prefix and root to avoid possible confusion.
| anti-aircraft
pre-Renaissance
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| 3. The hyphen is used in writing some compounds which, without the hyphen, would be ambiguous, hard to read or overly long, and which contain prepositions.
| president-elect
over-the-counter
sister-in-law
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| 4. The hyphen is used to suspend the first element and the hyphenated compound or a prefix when the second element or base word is part of a following hyphenated compound or derived form.
| a two- or three week holiday
pre- and post-war Berlin
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| 5. The hyphen is used in writing out compound numbers between 21 and 99 and fractions.
| twenty-four
one hundred and fifty-nine
three-fourths
one-half
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| 6. The hyphen is used to indicate a range.
| Alan earns £ 500-£800 a month.
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