En dash –

The en dash means “to” or “between.” Chicago style uses it for:

• Number ranges: pages 45–67, 2010–2024, ages 6–12
• Time and date ranges: 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., June–August
• Scores and votes: The Cubs won 5–3. The bill passed 52–48.
• Routes and pairings: the Boston–Washington train, a Dodgers–Giants game
• Compound adjectives built on an open compound: a post–World War II boom, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author

There are no spaces around an en dash in a range. And don’t mix words and dashes: write “from 2010 to 2024” or “between 2010 and 2024,” never “from 2010–2024.”

AP style is the exception. The AP Stylebook does not use the en dash at all; it writes ranges with a hyphen (2010-2024). If you follow AP for news writing, the hyphen is correct.

• Hyphen (-) joins words: long-term, twenty-one. It is the shortest.
• En dash (–) joins ranges and pairs. It is roughly the width of a capital N.
• Em dash (—) breaks a sentence—like this. It is the widest.
• Minus sign (−) belongs in math: 7 − 3 = 4. It is designed to match the plus sign, which the en dash only approximates.

In much British and European typography, a spaced en dash ( – ) does the job Americans give to the em dash. You will see it in imported text; for US publications, switch to the em dash or AP’s spaced style.

The keyboard hyphen is technically a hyphen-minus that doubles as a minus. Unicode also has a dedicated hyphen ‐ (U+2010), but most writers never need it.

• Word for Windows: Ctrl+Minus on the numeric keypad. AutoFormat also turns a spaced hyphen between words (word - word) into a spaced en dash as you type.
• iPhone: hold the hyphen key on the numbers keyboard and slide to the shorter of the two dashes.
• Gboard on Android: long-press the hyphen on the symbols page.
• LaTeX: two hyphens, as in pages 10--15.
• Google Docs: Insert > Special characters, then search for “en dash,” or add an automatic substitution under Tools > Preferences.