hyphenate

Etymology

hyphen + -ate

verb

  1. (transitive) to break a word at the end of a line according to the hyphenation rules by adding a hyphen on the end of the line.
  2. (transitive) to join words or syllables with a hyphen.
    you have to hyphenate his surname as it's double-barrelled

noun

  1. A person or object with multiple duties, abilities or characteristics, such as "writer-director", "actor-model", or "singer-songwriter".
  2. A person whose ethnicity is a multi-word hyphenated term, such as "African-American".
    We seem to have settled on African-American, and at first glance it certainly does seem logical. […] Not to mention what happens when hyphenates marry other hyphenates and have baby hyphenates. 2006, Nick Adams, Making Friends With Black People, page 15

Attribution / Disclaimer All definitions come directly from Wiktionary using the Wiktextract library. We do not edit or curate the definitions for any words, if you feel the definition listed is incorrect or offensive please suggest modifications directly to the source (wiktionary/hyphenate), any changes made to the source will update on this page periodically.