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Hyphenation of hand-me-down

How to hyphenate hand-me-down

Because it is a word with a single syllable, hand-me-down is not hyphenated. The words that have a single syllable are called monosyllabic words.

hand-me-down
Syllables Count
1
Characters Count
12
Words Count
3
Characters without spaces Count
12
Haphenation done based on the Knuth-Liang word-division algorithm. The computed hyphenation pattern is:

Definitions of hand-me-down

hand-me-down is defined as:

Definition 1 as noun

  • noun
    An item that is passed along for someone else to use; especially, a piece of clothing or other item which has been outgrown by an older sibling and passed down to a younger one.

Definition 1 as adjective

  • adjective
    Used or second-hand, passed along by its prior user.

Words nearby hand-me-down

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What is hyphenation

Hyphenation is the process of splitting words into syllables and inserting hyphens between them to facilitate the reading of a text. It is also used to divide words when the word cannot fit on a line.

This technique is particularly helpful in fully justified texts, where it aids in creating a uniform edge along both sides of a paragraph. Hyphenation rules vary among languages and even among different publications within the same language. It's a critical component in typesetting, significantly influencing the aesthetics and readability of printed and digital media. For instance, in compound adjectives like 'long-term solution', hyphens clarify relationships between words, preventing misinterpretation. Moreover, hyphenation can alter meanings: 'recreation' differs from 're-creation'.

With the advent of digital text, hyphenation algorithms have become more sophisticated, though still imperfect, sometimes requiring manual adjustment to ensure accuracy and coherence in text layout. Understanding and correctly applying hyphenation rules is therefore not only a matter of linguistic accuracy but also a key aspect of effective visual communication.