Forever confusing: lifelong, life-long, life long

Here’s a set of words that have perplexed some writers their entire lives: lifelong vs. life-long vs. life long.

Most grammarists agree that lifelong – meaning lasting through one’s existence, as in a lifelong friendship – should be one word rather than two words or hyphenated.

Confusion over the spelling arises because punctuation rules say that compound words, when used as an adjective, usually require a hyphen, as in well-known man. “Usually” is the operative word here, as lifelong is an exception. The same applies to other “long” words that show a length of time, such as daylong, monthlong, weeklong and yearlong.

Life long is never correct. Typically compound words with a space consist of two nouns, such as ice cream.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.