Word.ws English Dictionary

hyphenitis

hyphenitis noun: the overuse of hyphens.

Noun

hyphenitis (uncountable)

  1. (humorous) The overuse of hyphens.
    • Writers suffering from hyphenitis produce pages which look very much like a speckled hen.1961, Jack T. Huber, Report Writing in Psychology and Psychiatry, page 80

Origin of hyphenitis

From hyphen + -itis.

Questions about hyphenitis

What does hyphenitis mean?
Hyphenitis means the overuse of hyphens.
What part of speech is hyphenitis?
Hyphenitis is a noun.

Words near hyphenitis in the dictionary

  1. hyphening
  2. hyphenisation
  3. hyphenise
  4. hyphenism
  5. hyphenisms
  6. hyphenitis
  7. hyphenization
  8. hyphenizations
  9. hyphenize
  10. hyphenized
  11. hyphenizes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hyphenitis (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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