Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms: dash (-)
dash (-)
a punctuation mark similar to a hyphen, but longer. On a typewriter, a dash is typed as two hyphens.
Proportional-pitch type often includes one or more kinds of dashes, such as an em dash (-), which is as wide as the height of the font, and an en dash (-), which is two-thirds as wide as the em dash. Normally, the em dash joins sentences and the en dash joins numbers (as in "1995- 98").
