nohyphen

nohyphen refers to the non-breaking hyphen character used in typography to prevent a line break at a hyphenation point. It corresponds to the Unicode character NO-BREAK HYPHEN, designated as U+2011. In many fonts it is visible as a standard hyphen, while in others it may render differently or be less conspicuous. The main purpose is to keep connected elements together on the same line, such as in compound terms or phrases that should not be split at the hyphen.

The non-breaking hyphen is distinct from the regular hyphen (U+002D), which permits a break after the hyphen, and from the soft hyphen (U+00AD), which indicates a potential break only if needed. It is also different from a non-breaking space (U+00A0), which prevents a break between words rather than at a hyphen.

Common use cases include preserving whole phrases on a single line, such as "state‑of‑the‑art" or "mother‑in‑law," where breaking at hyphens would be undesirable. It is particularly relevant in typesetting for publications, digital text, and web pages where consistent line wrapping matters.

In HTML and other markup, the non-breaking hyphen can be embedded using a numeric character reference such as ‑. Font support varies, so rendering may differ across systems and browsers. Overall, the nohyphen is a practical tool for controlling line breaks without introducing extra spaces or modifying spelling. See also hyphenation, non-breaking space, and soft hyphen.