Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes

A. That’s a very good question! A top-ten school means a school that is among the top ten schools on a ranked list. In the first expression, top-ten is a compound modifier and is therefore hyphenated; in the second, the phrase top ten simply means first ten, so no hyphen is needed.

Only rarely would the phrase the top ten schools need a hyphen, as when top-ten is being used as a category—a scenario that would be more likely with singular school: Harvard, the top-ten school most commonly selected by students planning to major in political science, is in Cambridge.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. The hyphens in historical-philosophical and military-political imply a mix of factors that’s more complex than what and would suggest—more of an intersection than a pair of attributes. If that’s what you intend, keep the hyphens rather than replacing them with commas.

These adjectives are equivalent to a term like socioeconomic, in which the word social in social-economic has become the combining form socio- and joins with economic to become one word (some of these terms retain their hyphens; see CMOS 7.96, sec. 2, under “combining forms”).

In fact, the similar term historicophilosophical is entered in Wiktionary and makes an appearance as an example under historico- in Merriam-Webster, so you could consider using that form instead of historical-philosophical (though you could retain the hyphen in this unwieldy compound for the sake of legibility: historico-philosophical).

There’s no established combining form for military, but military-political works well. Or you could try politico-military, as entered in Wiktionary.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. When a compound modifier that would normally be hyphenated before a noun that it modifies (hand-fabricated jewel) is separated from that noun by an intervening phrase, keeping the hyphen is usually best. In your example, a hyphen will prevent readers from thinking, however fleetingly, of a hand fabricated in gold (as on a statuette 👋).

Plus, the phrase hand fabricated is closely analogous to handmade and handcrafted, both of which are entered as one word in most dictionaries. It’s also like hand-painted, which is entered as a hyphenated adjective in both Merriam-Webster and the OED. This suggests that hand fabricated, though it’s not in most dictionaries, naturally forms a unit and could benefit from a hyphen no matter where it appears in a sentence.

In other words, you might consider retaining a hyphen for this term even when it follows the noun it modifies—that jewel is hand-fabricated—though Chicago style allows you to omit it there (see CMOS 7.92 and “Compound Modifiers After a Noun: A Postpositive Dilemma,” at CMOS Shop Talk).

In general, be sparing with your hyphens, which can add unnecessary clutter to your prose. But any hyphen added (or retained) for the sake of clarity is usually a good idea.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. Though CMOS doesn’t cover this specific case, common sense does suggest that you wouldn’t need a hyphen when an adverb is paired with a past participle used as a verb rather than as an adjective. You could try substituting a different adverb for ill to test this hunch: “Gruesome now described the scene.” A hyphen would be out of place there.

But the wording in your sentence is unusual—ill is rarely paired with verbs other than afford, treat, or use—so hyphenation might be helpful. The expression ill afford is in Merriam-Webster without a hyphen, but that phrase generally has only one form: can (or could) ill afford. By contrast, both ill-treat and ill-use are entered as hyphenated verbs, giving you a couple of models to follow.

Verdict? A hyphen in your example, though not strictly required (see also CMOS 7.96, sec. 2, under “phrases, verbal”), may help clarify that ill belongs with the verb. You could add one (“Gruesome ill-described the scene”) unless your client prefers otherwise.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. Putting something in black and white has been a thing for centuries; according to Merriam-Webster, the noun phrase black and white to mean writing or print dates to 1569. Once color photography became popular, the adjective black-and-white—with hyphens—was probably inevitable.

A pink-and-yellow scarf, on the other hand, or one that’s red and white or blue and green or any other combination you can think of? Those are arbitrary combinations. But you should hyphenate any one of them as a preceding modifier regardless (as at the start of this paragraph), at least if you’re following Chicago style. Hyphens will make it more obvious that you aren’t referring, for example, to a pink and a yellow scarf.

This issue is not, however, black and white. For more on this subject (including why we’ve left the hyphens out of black and white in the first sentence of this paragraph), see “Compound Modifiers After a Noun: A Postpositive Dilemma,” at CMOS Shop Talk.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. The hyphenation guide under CMOS 7.96 in the eighteenth edition consists of HTML text formatted as a table, which is visible to the Find feature in browsers (unlike the PNG offered in the seventeenth edition) and is considered by accessibility experts to be preferable to PDF.

We understand that many people liked the downloadable PDF option, but the HTML table format (unlike either an image or a PDF file) can be readily converted to whatever format you’d like. Here are two options:

1. Print to PDF. In Chrome for Windows, (a) select the table text (e.g., by dragging your mouse from the top left of the table all the way down to the bottom); (b) right-click anywhere in the selected text to bring up the context menu; (c) choose Print; and (d) change Destination to Save as PDF instead of sending the table to a printer. Before you save, you can adjust the settings in Chrome to resize the table as desired or to keep the background graphics (in this case shading), among other options. Other browsers and platforms will have similar options.

2. Copy and paste into Microsoft Word. Select the table text as in step 1a above and then copy and paste it into Word. You can then use Word to adjust fonts and borders and the like as desired. This file can be used as is, or you can save it as a PDF directly from Word. These steps should work equally well in Google Docs (among other programs).

In sum, the HTML format for the table in the eighteenth edition makes it possible to create and customize your own PDF or other version of the hyphenation guide in just a few steps. The process may not be as much fun as making a miniature CMOS ornament, but the result is probably more useful.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. According to the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96 (sec. 2, under “phrases, verbal”), compound verbs like that one are left open unless entered in Merriam-Webster with a hyphen. There’s no entry there for that verb, hyphenated or otherwise, so we’d write password protect.

If you strongly prefer the hyphen, you could cite the OED, which does include an entry for the term, where it’s hyphenated (password-protect). The OED mostly reflects British usage, but many similar verbs are listed in either Merriam-Webster or the OED with a hyphen (e.g., double-click, fact-check, hot-wire, fast-forward). And though the term password-protect isn’t listed in either Microsoft’s or Apple’s style guide, the similar verb write-protect is listed in Microsoft’s guide (and in the OED) and copy-protect is entered in Apple’s guide (all as of February 3, 2026).

In sum, Chicago style would call for password protect (no hyphen), but the hyphen is nonetheless a reasonable choice recorded in at least one major English-language dictionary and reflected in similar terms.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. We can confirm that Chicago style doesn’t require hyphens in over the top when it’s used as a predicate adjective (as in your example, where it modifies the implied subject “It” from the previous sentence) or when it’s used an adverb (“they went over the top with their demands”). But you won’t necessarily get this answer from the dictionary.

Merriam-Webster’s entry for that term shows two forms: the phrase over the top (without hyphens) and the adjective over-the-top (with hyphens). That hyphenated adjective, however, isn’t the last word.

In Merriam-Webster’s entries for over-the-top and many other hyphenated compound adjectives, the hyphens are generally presented as if they’re a permanent fixture of such terms. But more than a few of these terms—from clear-cut to well-versed—can be left unhyphenated when they follow rather than precede a noun that they modify, a usage long supported by CMOS. For example, you could refer to “an over-the-top solution” (with hyphens) but “a solution that was over the top” (no hyphens).

This nuance may be falling out of fashion (perhaps because it’s so easy to toggle over to the dictionary for any hyphenation question and copy whatever’s entered there), but it still matters in Chicago style. For more on this subject, see “Compound Modifiers After a Noun: A Postpositive Dilemma,” at CMOS Shop Talk. See also the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96, under “phrases, adjectival”; for adverbs, see “phrases, adverbial.”

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. Those two paragraphs do seem to contradict each other, but it’s important to note that CMOS would recommend reworking the phrase “time clock–punching employees,” if possible, to avoid the need for an en dash. The problem is that more than a few readers will assume that the en dash is simply a kind of hyphen (if they notice the difference at all), which could result in a misreading, at least initially, of “clock-punching employees” who are somehow modified by “time.”

A phrase like “Civil War–era veterans,” by contrast, is a little easier to parse, thanks to the initial caps, which can help readers to understand that “Civil War” is a single term joined to the word “era.” The lowercase term “time clock,” though it’s common enough, doesn’t stand out in the same way. That’s why “country music–influenced lyrics” (the analogous example in CMOS 6.86) is followed by an alternative: “lyrics influenced by country music.”

We could have offered a second alternative: “country-music-influenced lyrics” (with two hyphens). But the noun phrase “country music” doesn’t seem to need a hyphen even when it’s used attributively before another noun, as in “country music lyrics,” which rarely appears anywhere with a hyphen (even though “country-music lyrics,” with a hyphen, wouldn’t be technically wrong; see CMOS 7.91 for a fuller explanation).

The phrase “time-clock punching,” however, seems to benefit from the hyphen, even though “time clock” is normally unhyphenated as a noun. That’s why “time-clock-punching employees”—where the whole phrase is used attributively—is our preference in CMOS (not only in chapter 5 but also in our hyphenation guide, section 1, under “noun + gerund”).

If you don’t like all those hyphens, try “employees who punch a time clock”—or, yes, use an en dash: “time clock–punching employees.” Some (many?) readers may not notice your en dash, but IYKYK.

Extra credit: What about “time-clock–punching employees,” with a hyphen and an en dash? That’s not a terrible idea (it does signal the hierarchy of relationships in the phrase), but it’s not Chicago style.

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]

A. You’re right: It would make sense to spell post-traumatic stress disorder with an en dash. In fact, we could have used your editorial wisdom back in 2003, when we added posttraumatic to the fifteenth edition of CMOS to show that the prefix post- forms one-word compounds even if the result is two consecutive t’s.

That decision would have reflected the spelling posttraumatic in a list of 125 compounds formed with post- under the entry for that prefix in the then-current tenth edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Still, we must have failed to register the hyphen in Merriam-Webster’s separate entry for post-traumatic stress disorder, which followed entries for posttranscriptional, posttransfusion, and posttranslational—all without hyphens. It’s clear in hindsight that, as you suggest, post-traumatic was hyphenated in that term (and not in the list of words formed with post-) for a reason, one that had nothing to do with consecutive t’s. (The latest iteration of Merriam-Webster, as of November 4, 2025, now hyphenates post-traumatic as a stand-alone term also.)

But the dictionary doesn’t do en dashes,* and in post-traumatic stress disorder, no one else seems to either (not even Wikipedia, which tends to feature a lot of en dashes compared with other publications). Instead, we’d advise saving your en dashes for more established uses (see CMOS 6.82–90—especially 6.86, on en dashes with compound adjectives).

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* The hyphenated main entries in printed editions of Merriam-Webster do feature en dashes rather than hyphens, but that’s presumably for the sake of legibility in very small type and therefore doesn’t count (see also this related Q&A).

[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]