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— in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
— you have here. The definition of the word
— will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition of
—, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Translingual
Punctuation mark
— (English name em dash)
- Demarcates parenthetical thought. See — —.
1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Sense and Sensibility , volume I, London: C Roworth, , and published by T Egerton, , →OCLC, pages 182–183:I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;—but you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can——It will not satisfy you I know; but you shall not talk me out of my trust in it.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:—.
- Indicates a logical consequence.
- Synonym: :
1962, Jack Frohlichstein, Mathematical Fun, Games and Puzzles (in English), Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 9:Bet anyone he can't correctly name the next highest number to every number which you will give him. […]
43 — he will say 44
87 — he will say 88
123 — he will say 124
- Indicates aposiopesis, an abrupt breaking-off in speech. See also … (“the ellipsis”).
- Separates a term from its definition.
2011, Adam Rizvi, Click Start to Begin: Windows XP Basics (in English), Click Start Publishing Ltd., →ISBN, page 22:Refresh — This will refresh the current folder, updating it with any new files or settings.
- Indicates a lack of data in a table.[1]
- Alternative form of ― (“horizontal bar; quotation dash; introduces a line of dialogue”)
- Used to censor letters in obscene words.
1820, Cruikshank, All among the Hottentots capering to shore (painting; in English):D—n the Devil .. he be going to eat me!!! — Rot me if he ain't as bloody minded as a Manchester butcher! Oh! dear! Oh! dear!! D—n your outlandish jaws!!
D—n. F—k.
- Synonym: ⸺
- (dated, fiction) Used to replace part or all of a person's name, a place name, a date, or so forth.
1748, a Lady, in a Letter to her Friend in the Country, A Free Comment on the Late Mr. W—g—n’s Apology for His Conduct; Which Clears Up the Obscurities of That Celebrated Posthumous Work, and Dissipates the Clouds in Which the Author Has Thought Proper to Envelope His Meaning (in English), London: W. Webb, page 15:I hope D—ds—y will look to theſe literal Errors, he being the only one of the Trade I can venture to truſt.
- Synonyms: ⸺, ⸻
- Used as a ditto mark in lists or tables to indicate a repetition of appropriate content above.
- Synonym: —〃—
- Coordinate term: 〃
- 1950, United States Census, New York, page listing Frank Valasky of New York City:
- Valasky, Frank
- —, Edna M
- (music) A pointing mark in Anglican chant, used as a placeholder in the text to indicate that a bar of the chant should be omitted; typically used when a verse or half-verse is very short.
- Coordinate terms: |, ', :, *, ·, ‖, †
Derived terms
Derived terms
- ⸺ (two-em dash)
- ⸻ (three-em dash)
See also
quotation marks and quotation dashes - all single characters
- Curved double quotation marks: “ · ” · „ · ‟
- Curved single quotation marks and apostrophes: ‘ · ’ · ‚ · ‛
- Straight double quotation mark: "
- Straight single quotation mark and apostrophe: '
- Prime quotation marks: 〝 · 〞 · 〟
- Guillemets: « · »
- Single guillemets: ‹ · ›
- Corner brackets: 「 · 」 · 『 · 』
- Quotation dashes: — (em dash) · ― (horizontal bar) · – (en dash)
Punctuation
References
- ^ Joan G. Nagle, Handbook for preparing engineering documents: from concept to completion, 1995, p. 114:
We can use the word none or N/D (no data), or insert an em dash; any of these entries show that we haven't simply forgotten to fill the cell. N/A is commonly used for not applicable. It's good practice to footnote N/A or N/D the first time it is used.
English
Article
—
- (stenoscript) Abbreviation of the.
Letter
—
- (stenoscript) The letter sequence ⟨th⟩.
- (stenoscript) The sound sequences /(V)nd/, /(V)nt/
- (stenoscript) The suffixes or sequences mand, mend, mond, and -ment.
a— —
Derived terms
(letter sequense ⟨th⟩):
- —a (“they”)
- —oz (“those”)
- —r (“their/there”)
- —s (“this”)
- —t (“that”)
- —z (“these”)
Usage notes
- (stenoscript) The dash may be written low, along the baseline, or high, at x-height, as convenient for whichever letters it links to. For example, with mo—n for 'more than', the dash is likely to be written at x-height.
- (stenoscript) When used as punctuation, an en or em dash is doubled, like a long ⹀, to distinguish it from its phonetic use.
Russian
Punctuation mark
—
- Indicates zero (omission) of the present tense of быть (bytʹ).
- Used in — —.
- Replaces ‐ in some appositions, where hyphen would be used to connect the appositive word and the word in apposition if neither of them were a phrase.
Usage notes
- ⟨—⟩ is not used when the subject is a pronoun; e.g. я ру́сский (ja rússkij, “I am Russian”) or with predicative adjectives.
- ⟨— —⟩ is preferred over parentheses when the supplemental information is necessary to understand the writer's point and cannot be dropped.
- A dash or a hyphen is used in Russian apposition when the first word (or first words) is not a form of address (e.g. товарищ (tovarišč)) and the second word is an appellative.