How major style guides rule on "reelect"
AP retains the hyphen to break the double 'e'; Chicago and Merriam-Webster prefer the closed form.
The disagreement on "reelect" is an example of hyphenation rules for common prefixes, the category of style-guide differences that most often confuses copy editors and creates inconsistency across long documents. Below is a guide-by-guide breakdown, drawn directly from the published editions cited.
| Style guide | Preferred form |
|---|---|
| AP Stylebook (2024–2025 Edition) | re-elect |
| Chicago Manual of Style | reelect |
| MLA Handbook | reelect |
| APA Publication Manual | reelect |
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary | reelect (also re-elect) |
What the divergence actually means
Unlike many compound-modernization decisions where style guides eventually converge, "reelect" continues to show genuine divergence between major guides. The AP Stylebook treats this as a settled call; Chicago Manual leaves more flexibility; and Merriam-Webster, as a descriptive dictionary, records both forms. Source: Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition
The APA Publication Manual diverges here: it specifies "reelect" as the form preferred for academic writing in psychology and behavioral-science journals. APA's reasoning typically tracks scientific publishing conventions rather than newspaper-style economy. Source: APA Publication Manual, 7th Edition
Merriam-Webster lists "reelect (also re-elect)", which serves as the lexicographic baseline for U.S. style decisions. Because Merriam-Webster's entries reflect aggregated published usage rather than editorial preference, when a guide says "follow Merriam-Webster", as APA does, that effectively delegates the call to whichever spelling has dominated the published corpus. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Garner's Modern English Usage classifies the "reelect" / "re-elect" pair on its Language-Change Index, a five-stage scale measuring whether a once-disputed form has been accepted into Standard English. For hyphenation rules for common prefixes, Garner's typically rates the dominant form at Stage 4 ("ubiquitous but objected to by traditionalists") or Stage 5 ("fully accepted"). Source: Garner's Modern English Usage, 5th Edition
Practical guidance for editors
For working writers, the practical rule is straightforward: in journalism, follow AP; in academic writing in the humanities, follow MLA or Chicago; in social-science publishing, follow APA; in book publishing, follow Chicago. When no house style applies, Merriam-Webster's main entry is the safest default. The differences across these guides on "reelect" reflect not disagreement about correctness but different audiences and editorial pressures.
Editorial context
The visual clash of double e's in reelect frequently misleads copy editors into inserting a hyphen, even when house style demands the closed form, as the sequence evokes an awkward stutter to the eye despite smooth pronunciation. This common error arises from ingrained habits prioritizing perceived readability over prefix assimilation rules codified in dictionaries since the mid-20th century, where re- fuses seamlessly before vowels in established terms. For instance, in a sentence like Supporters aim to reelect the senator amid economic recovery., an editor might reflexively emend to re-elect, inadvertently importing AP's journalistic convention into book or academic copy. Such overcorrections proliferate in high-volume political reporting, where speed trumps second-guessing, and persist because training often emphasizes avoiding 'ee' collisions without contextual nuance from historical typesetting shifts toward solid compounds by the 1940s.
Cross-references
For the dictionary entry, frequency data, and pronunciation of reelect, see the main word page. For other style-guide spelling decisions in this category, browse all style-guide spelling rulings.