em dash

noun Printing.

a dash one em long.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source

Collins

World English Dictionary

em dash or em rule

—n
	printing a dash (—) one em long

em rule or em rule

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

00:10

Em dash is always a great word to know.

So is ort. Does it mean:

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Example sentences

If not possible, use two hyphens to create an em dash.

As shown in the examples above, do not put a space on both sides of an em dash.

Use an em dash-instead of a hyphen-as shown here to set off a particular phrase.

Use an em dash to signal that an important point is going to be made or that a

change in the construction of the sentence follows.

Enjoy Dictionary.com ad-free! Learn more

Matching Quote

"The writer has a grudge against society, which he documents with accounts of unsatisfying sex, unrealized ambition, unmitigated loneliness, and a sense of local and global distress. The square, overpopulation, the bourgeois, the bomb and the cocktail party are variously identified as sources of the grudge. There follows a little obscenity here, a dash of philosophy there, considerable whining overall, and a modern satirical novel is born."

-Renata Adler