-- --, a string of two hyphen-minus characters or - -, may approximate or refer to: En dash (–) Em dash (—), as a typewriter approximation Sig dashes (--), the email and Usenet signature delimiter For Unix commands, used as a prefix for command options. By itself, it typically means the end of command options. Decrement operator in some programming languages Inline comments, commonly used in programming languages Emoticon, a pictorial representation of a facial expression in characters.. view more