—

• - (improper typesetting)
• --, ---, ---- (informal)

— (English name em dash) (Alt + 0151)

1. Demarcates parenthetical thought. See — —.
   • 1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume I, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] 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.

     A small gap is visible in the double em dash.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:—.
2. 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

3. Indicates aposiopesis, an abrupt breaking-off in speech. See also … (“the ellipsis”).
4. 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.

5. Indicates a lack of data in a table.[1]
6. Alternative form of ― (“horizontal bar; quotation dash; introduces a line of dialogue”)
7. 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. [Damn] F—k. [Fuck]

   Synonym: ⸺

8. (dated, fiction) Used to replace part or all of a person's name, a place name, a date, or so forth. [chiefly 19th century]
   • 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: ⸺, ⸻

9. Used as a ditto mark in lists or tables to indicate a repetition of appropriate content above.

   Synonym: —〃—

   • 1950, United States Census, New York, page listing Frank Valasky of New York City:

     Valasky, Frank […]

     —, Edna M […]

• (ditto mark): see 〃

• — —

• ⸺ (two-em dash)
• ⸻ (three-em dash)

Punctuation

—

1. (stenoscript) the letter sequence ⟨th⟩

   (see: —t that, —r their/there, —z these, —a they, —s this, —oz those)

2. (stenoscript) Abbreviation of the.
3. (stenoscript) the sound sequences /(V)nd/, /(V)nt/
4. (stenoscript) the suffixes or sequences mand, mend, mond, -ment

   (e.g. ⟨a— —⟩ amendment)

• (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.

—

1. Indicates zero (omission) of the present tense of быть (bytʹ). Called тире́ (tirɛ́) in Russian.

   Вре́мя — де́ньги.

   Vrémja — dénʹgi.

   Time is money.

2. Used in — —.
3. 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.

   Не́которые госуда́рства — чле́ны ЕС препя́тствуют размеще́нию бе́женцев на свое́й террито́рии.

   Nékotoryje gosudárstva — člény JeS prepjátstvujut razmeščéniju béžencev na svojéj territórii.

   Some EU member states prevent placement of refugees on their territory.

1. — is not used when the subject is a pronoun; e.g. я ру́сский (ja rússkij, “I am Russian”) or with predicative adjectives.
2. — — are preferred over ( ) when the supplemental information is necessary to understand author's point and can't be dropped.
3. 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.