adjectives - Less-experienced vs less experienced employee



As an Android developer with 3 years of experience, I also help less experienced team members.



Do I need to put a hyphen between "less" and "experienced"?



Answer



No. This is a case of an adverb (“less”) modifying an adjectival participle (“experienced”), which in turn is modifying a noun phrase of the noun+noun type (“team members”). It is not a case where a phrase of two or more words serves as if it were a single adjective modifying a directly following noun or noun phrase, and thus requiring hyphenation as a compound adjective, as in “a man-eating lion.” (This particular example illustrates where the hyphenation is necessary resolve a possible ambiguity, since a man could eat the flesh of a lion, but even where no such possibility arises, many editors require hyphenation of compound adjectives.)


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