What is the En Dash?
The en dash (–, Unicode U+2013) is the middle child of the dash family. Measuring the width of a capital letter N, it is roughly 1.5 times the length of a standard hyphen (-) and half the length of an em dash (—).
While often neglected by casual typists who default to standard hyphens, major style guides (including the Chicago Manual of Style, APA, and Oxford Style Manual) mandate the en dash in three specific grammatical contexts.
The 3 Places Where the En Dash is Required
1. Number, Date, and Time Ranges (Spanning "To" or "Through")
Whenever two numbers represent the endpoints of a continuous span or range, use an en dash with no spaces around it:
- Years & Dates: The Renaissance period (1300–1600), May 4–8.
- Page Numbers: See pages 84–97 for the complete appendix.
- Times: Office hours are 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
- Scores & Tallies: The championship game ended 104–98.
2. Paired Links, Routes, and Geographic Connections
Use an en dash to link two entities that retain their individual identities in a joint relationship or transit route:
- The London–Paris high-speed rail line
- The liberal–conservative debate
- The New York–Tokyo flight route
3. Complex Compound Adjectives with Multi-Word Elements
When one element of a compound modifier already consists of two or more words, a standard hyphen creates confusing visual grouping. An en dash links the multi-word element to the base noun cleanly:
- post–World War II economic recovery (en dash links "post" to the two-word phrase "World War II")
- New York–based design agency (en dash links "New York" to "based")
Common Mistake: "From... To" and "Between... And"
Do not use an en dash if the sentence already includes the introductory prepositions from or between:
- ❌ "She worked there from 2018–2022." (Incorrect)
- ✅ "She worked there from 2018 to 2022." (Correct)
- ❌ "The meeting is between 2:00–3:00 PM." (Incorrect)
- ✅ "The meeting is between 2:00 and 3:00 PM." (Correct)
Normalizing En Dashes to ASCII Hyphens
If you need to paste text into a database, command line, or code repository that requires standard ASCII characters, use Text Cleaner's Remove Dashes tool to normalize en dashes to standard hyphens.
