Word.ws English Dictionary

em dashes

em dashes is the plural of em dash.

Meaning of em dash

Noun

em dash (plural em dashes)

  1. The symbol (—) (used to demarcate a parenthetical thought or to indicate a break, or for emphasis); a one-em or long dash.
    • So now, no matter where it’s coming from or why, millions of people recognize the em dash as a sign of zero-effort, low-quality algorithmic slop.2025 December 3, Sam Kriss, “Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?”, in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 Dec 2025
    Synonyms:
    em rule, m-rule, mutton dash, ChatGPT hyphen

Questions about em dashes

What is em dashes the plural of?
Em dashes is the plural of em dash.

Words near em dashes in the dictionary

  1. Elzys
  2. Elâzığ
  3. elæon
  4. em
  5. em dash
  6. em dashes
  7. em quad
  8. em quads
  9. em rule
  10. em space
  11. em spaces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: em dashes (page history and authors); em dash (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “em dashes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/em_dashes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.