Is there a rule to explain why (in most dictionaries) words such as half-brother or half-sister are hyphenated while stepbrother or stepsister are not?
Learn English – A Case of Hyphenation
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Is there a rule to explain why (in most dictionaries) words such as half-brother or half-sister are hyphenated while stepbrother or stepsister are not?
Best Answer
Compound words in English can be separated by a space (e.g. ice cream), a hyphen (your examples), or nothing (e.g. bestseller).
But, the step in stepbrother, etc. is unrelated to the English word step as in thing you put your foot on to move (from Wikipedia article Stepfamily:)
So this is not really a compound word so much as a separate word or a prefix (e.g. like unknown, pregame, etc.)