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- (Hyphen-Minus, U+002D) is a versatile punctuation mark that serves a dual role due to its origins in typewriters and early character sets like ASCII, which prioritized efficiency. Visually a short, horizontal line positioned at mid-height, its primary function is as a hyphen, connecting words (e.g., "state-of-the-art") or breaking words at line endings. Simultaneously, it acts as the mathematical minus sign for subtraction (e.g., "10 - 5 = 5") and to denote negative numbers (e.g., "-3"). While professional typography often prefers distinct characters like the dedicated Hyphen (U+2010) and Minus Sign (U+2212), along with En Dash (U+2013) for ranges and Em Dash (U+2014) for parenthetical statements, the Hyphen-Minus remains the most commonly used form in general text, coding, and command-line interfaces due to its universal keyboard accessibility.