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Anonymous Posted 13 years ago
Business & Finance

Debt free or debt-free?

"Some people do not even realize that they can be debt free."

Debt free or debt-free? If it should be "debt-free", then could you please explain why, because I am pretty sure it should be "debt free."
  

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5 Answers
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AnonymousI am pretty sure it should be "debt free."
And why is that?
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Because it is not preceding a noun. So is it going to be debt free or debt-free?
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AFAIK it's a normal compound adjective so it should be hyphenated, unless there's a good reason not to.
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KrisBlueNZit's a normal compound adjective so it should be hyphenated
I concur.
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AnonymousBecause it is not preceding a noun. So is it going to be debt free or debt-free?
But then, this is only part of the reasoning why hyphenation is used - disambiguation.

Hyphenation, as I understand, also has to do with semantics, and the hyphen in debt-free serves to shift emphasis from the individual words to the single concept
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