Hyphens

General guidelines

Guidance for hyphenation isn't always straightforward because it depends on the following circumstances:

• Location. For example, does a term precede a noun, or does it follow a verb?
• Interpretation and readability. Is a sentence ambiguous or unclear if a term is not hyphenated?
• Convention. For some terms, our guidance tells us to always hyphenate or never hyphenate, even if the convention seems to contradict other guidance.

In addition, there are many exceptions to general hyphenation guidance. If you're not sure whether to hyphenate a term, in addition to reviewing the guidelines on this page, check the following sources (in this order):

1. The documentation that you're working with. If there's an established convention for hyphenating a term in a particular documentation set, follow that convention.
2. The word list in this style guide.
3. The Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Prefixes

In general, don't use a hyphen between a prefix and the main noun.

Recommended: infrastructure, megabyte, metadata, preprocessing, pseudocode, semiconductor

Exceptions

Add a hyphen after a prefix in the following circumstances:

• If the prefix is self or cross: self-managing, cross-region
• If the noun is capitalized or is a number: non-Google, post-2000
• To avoid confusion or difficulty in reading: de-energize, intra-index, re-mark, re-sign
• If the prefix is for a term that already has hyphens or spaces: un-Google-like, non-twentieth-century
• To be consistent within a document: pre-processing, post-processing

The non prefix

The non prefix follows the same guidelines, but because it can easily form words that are hard to parse, it's often hyphenated. Use your best judgment, taking into account consistency within your documentation. The following recommendations show contrasting usages that you can use as examples.

Recommended: noncurrent, nonempty, noninteractive, nonpublic

Recommended: non-existence, non-integer, non-key, non-managed, non-negative

When using non as a prefix, add a hyphen before hyphenated compound words.

Recommended: non-KSA-based, non-self-sustaining