Email — no hyphen — is the standard spelling in American English today. It is the form used by the AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style (17th and 18th editions), and the vast majority of American newspapers, publishers, and tech companies. E-mail (with a hyphen) is still correct and still required by a handful of publications, but it is the minority form. E mail with a space is never acceptable in any context.
If you follow a style guide, use whatever it prescribes. If you don’t, use email. That’s the short answer. The longer answer explains why this split exists, what changed, and what to do in the edge cases where it still matters.
A Brief History of the Word
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the first networked mail message between two computers on ARPANET, introducing the now-familiar @ symbol to designate the user’s system address. The technology existed for years before the word did. In the early days, the shorthand for computer-to-computer messaging was “electronic mail message.” Merriam-Webster traces the first recorded use of the word e-mail to 1979, eight years after Tomlinson’s first message. It was not until 1982 that the word email was shortened and popularized for an electronic mail service, entering early adopters’ vocabulary. Wikipedia + 2
The hyphen in e-mail followed standard English practice. English hyphenates compound words that begin with a single letter — the same pattern behind x-ray, t-shirt, and u-turn. As long as email felt like a new technological concept — “electronic” mail, something distinct from regular mail — the hyphen made sense. It signaled that e- was doing real semantic work.
Over time, that changed. Writers stopped thinking of email as “electronic-(insert previously non-electronic thing here).” Email became its own category, distinct from a text, a message, a chat, or a post. Once that shift happened, the hyphen started to feel like scaffolding left standing after the building was finished. Closed-form email followed naturally. Writer’s Digest
What the Major Style Guides Say
The AP Stylebook
Effective March 19, 2011, the AP Stylebook changed e-mail to email. Other e- terms, such as e-book and e-commerce, retained the hyphen. This was a significant moment: the AP Stylebook sets house style for most American newspapers and wire services. Its adoption of email pushed the closed form into mainstream journalism almost overnight. Poynter
The Chicago Manual of Style
Chicago made the switch in its 17th edition (2017) and held the position in its 18th edition, published in September 2024. The 18th edition also brought ebook and esports into the closed-form column, joining email. For CMOS, the reasoning was straightforward: editors had watched influential dictionaries and style guides — including Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, the OED, the AP Stylebook, the New York Times, Apple, Microsoft, and Google — all move to email. Right Touch EditingCMOS Shop Talk
Merriam-Webster
Merriam-Webster defines email as “a means or system for transmitting messages electronically (as between computers on a network).” The dictionary’s main entry is filed under email, with e-mail treated as a variant form. Merriam-Webster
The New Yorker
The New Yorker remains the most visible holdout. The magazine has a long-standing house style that favors hyphenation across many compound words, and e-mail is part of that tradition. If you are submitting to The New Yorker, use e-mail. For nearly every other American publication, use email.
Why Email Crossed Over When E-book and E-commerce Didn’t
This is the question most articles skip. Why does email get closed form when e-book, e-commerce, e-learning, and e-reader still carry hyphens?
Frequency and familiarity are the driving forces. English compound words tend to follow a predictable arc: they start hyphenated, shed the hyphen as they become familiar, and sometimes eventually merge into a single word. Web site became website. On line became online. The faster a word enters everyday use and becomes cognitively native — something people use dozens of times a day without thinking about the prefix — the faster the hyphen disappears.
Email began as e-mail in the early days of the internet. But it became so common so fast that it completed the journey to closed form decades ahead of words like e-commerce, which most people still encounter as a category label rather than a daily habit. E-book is catching up — CMOS 18 just closed it — but email got there first. Treat each e- word separately rather than applying a single rule. Quillbot
Email as a Verb
Email works fully as both a noun and a verb in standard American English, and the verb forms are all closed.
- I’ll email you the details this afternoon.
- She emailed the contract to the client.
- He has been emailing vendors all week.
The hyphenated verb form e-mailed is grammatically defensible if your style guide requires e-mail throughout, but it reads awkwardly in practice and is increasingly rare even in publications that still prefer the hyphenated noun. If you use e-mail as a noun in a formal document, it is reasonable to write e-mailed and e-mailing for consistency. In most contexts, the verb forms emailed and emailing are the cleaner choice and raise no objections from any current style guide.
Which Spelling Should You Use?
Use email if:
- You follow AP style, Chicago style, or Merriam-Webster
- You write for a newspaper, magazine, website, or tech publication
- You have no assigned style guide and want the form most readers expect
Use e-mail if:
- Your publication explicitly requires it (The New Yorker, certain legal journals)
- Your organization’s internal style guide specifies it
- You are writing a formal legal document that follows a style manual still prescribing the hyphen
The non-negotiable rule: Pick one form and use it throughout your document. Switching between email and e-mail in the same piece is an editorial error, regardless of which form you choose. Inconsistency signals carelessness.
A Note on British English
British English followed a similar path to American English, if slightly later. Today, unlike many spelling differences between American and British English, both prefer email. The Oxford English Dictionary and most major UK publications now use the closed form. E-mail occasionally appears in older British academic and legal writing, but it is not the default. Basicsgrammar
Common Mistakes
Writing “e mail” with a space. There is no standard spelling of this word with a space. It is either email or e-mail — never e mail.
Mixing spellings in the same document. If you use email in your first paragraph and e-mail in your third, readers will notice and your editor will flag it. Consistency matters more than which form you pick.
Capitalizing mid-sentence without cause. Write email, not Email, unless the word opens a sentence. Treating it as a proper noun is an error.
Assuming e-mail is more formal. It was once. It isn’t anymore. In most current professional and academic writing, email is equally formal and far more common.
FAQs
Is e-mail outdated?
Not entirely. It remains correct and is still required by some publications — The New Yorker being the most prominent example. In most American English writing today, however, email is the default form, and e-mail is the exception.
Which form does Merriam-Webster list as primary?
Merriam-Webster’s main entry is filed under email. The hyphenated form e-mail appears as a variant. When a dictionary lists two spellings, the first entry is the recommended form.
Can email be used as a verb?
Yes, without reservation. I’ll email you, she emailed the report, and we’ve been emailing all week are all standard American English. The past tense is emailed, and the present participle is emailing — both closed, no hyphen.
What about related words like e-commerce and e-book?
Treat each e- word separately. E-commerce and e-learning still carry hyphens under most style guides. Ebook moved to closed form in the Chicago Manual of Style’s 18th edition (2024), following email. E-commerce has not yet made that jump in major American style guides. The AP Stylebook still hyphenates both. Check your specific style guide for each term rather than applying a blanket rule.
Is it “an email” or “a email”?
An email. The word begins with a vowel sound, so the indefinite article an is correct: She sent an email to the whole team. This applies to both noun and verb uses.
Did any major outlets use email before the AP made it official?
Yes. The AP Stylebook’s 2011 change was arguably the biggest formal blow to the hyphenated camp, but tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, and Google had dropped the hyphen years earlier. The New York Times followed AP’s lead in 2013. The style guides were, in effect, catching up to actual usage. Grammarly
The Bottom Line
Email is the standard spelling in American English and the form endorsed by the AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style (17th and 18th editions), Merriam-Webster, and virtually every major tech company and newspaper. E-mail is still correct and still required in certain publication contexts — know whether yours is one of them. E mail with a space is always wrong. Whatever you choose, be consistent from the first paragraph to the last.
Conclusion
Email is the standard spelling in American English and the form recommended by the AP Stylebook, the Chicago Manual of Style, and Merriam-Webster. E-mail is still correct and still appears in certain publications, but it is no longer the default.
For most writing today, go with email. If a style guide requires e-mail, follow it. Either way, stay consistent and skip the space — e mail is always wrong.
