How to hyphenate words that start with ‘re’

Corinna Lines | August 10, 2016

In words beginning with ‘re’, a hyphen can make a big difference. For example:

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen re-signs
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen resigns 

If you miss out the hyphen, suddenly Hansen’s leaving, rather than signing up for another 3 years.

When do you use a hyphen with ‘re’?

Use a hyphen with ‘re’ when both of these apply:

• ‘re’ means ‘again’
• leaving the hyphen out would cause confusion with another word.

In the example above, to ‘re-sign’ means to sign again. And if you left the hyphen out, you’d cause confusion with the word ‘resign’. Therefore, use a hyphen.

Commonly confused ‘re’ words

recover (Rest and fluids help you recover quickly.)
re-cover (I must re-cover the sofa.)

reserve (Let’s reserve a table at the restaurant.)
re-serve (The tennis player will re-serve.)

repress (Don’t repress your emotions.)
re-press (You need to re-press that shirt.)

resent (I resent your accusations.)
re-sent (The email didn’t arrive so it was re-sent.)

relay (I’ll relay your complaints to management.)
re-lay (The contractor will re-lay the carpet.)