dashlike

Dashlike is a term used in typography and typesetting to describe characters that resemble a dash. It covers several punctuation marks and symbols whose forms are long, straight horizontal lines, including the hyphen, en dash, em dash, minus sign, figure dash, soft hyphen, and the Unicode horizontal bar. Although they look similar, each mark has distinct functional uses and is encoded separately in Unicode and font metrics. The label dashlike is informal and appears mainly in discussions of punctuation, typography, and digital text rendering rather than as a formal category in most style guides.

Among the principal dashlike characters are: hyphen-minus (U+002D), used to join words and split syllables; en dash (U+2013), typically for ranges or connections such as pages 10–20 or 1999–2003; em dash (U+2014), used to indicate a break or emphasis; figure dash (U+2012), designed for aligning digits in tables; horizontal bar (U+2015), used in some languages and typographic traditions as a native dash; minus sign (U+2212), used in mathematics and science. The soft hyphen (U+00AD) marks a potential hyphenation point in word breaks.

Usage conventions vary by language and style guide. Hyphens are commonly used to join words; en dashes mark ranges or connections; em dashes provide a strong break or abrupt interruption; minus signs denote subtraction; figure dashes align numbers; soft hyphens influence where lines may break. Font choice and encoding affect how dashlike marks appear, making the distinction important for readability, searchability, and digital processing.

In digital typography, the dashlike set is standardized through Unicode and font metrics, with proper use aiding parsing, text-to-speech, and search indexing. The term dashlike thus serves as a convenient shorthand for a family of dash-shaped symbols, while precise usage depends on language, discipline, and publisher guidelines.