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hyphen (n.)

"short dash used to connect two words or separate one," 1620s, from Late Latin hyphen, from Greek hyphen "mark joining two syllables or words," probably indicating how they were to be said or sung. This was a noun use of an adverb meaning "together, in one," literally "under one," from hypo "under" (from PIE root *upo "under") + hen, neuter of heis "one," from PIE root *sem- (1) "one; as one, together with."

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Definitions of hyphen from WordNet
1
hyphen (v.)
divide or connect with a hyphen;
Synonyms: hyphenate
2
hyphen (n.)
a punctuation mark (-) used between parts of a compound word or between the syllables of a word when the word is divided at the end of a line of text;
Synonyms: dash
From wordnet.princeton.edu