A dash is

a punctuation mark
that is similar to
a hyphen or minus
sign, but differs from
both of these symbols
primarily in length
and function.
The most common
versions of the dash
are the en dash ()
and the em dash (
), named for the
length of a typeface's
lower-case n and
upper-
case M respectively.

The hyphen () is
a punctuation mark
used to
join words and to
separate syllables of
a single word. The
use of hyphens is
called hyphenation.

The hyphen should
not be confused
with dashes (, ,
, ), which are
longer and have
different uses, or with
theminus sign (),
which is also longer.