An em dash is a type of dash that is 1 em whide. It is twice the width of an en dash.
An em is a typographical unit equal to the current font size. An em dash is a dash – a horizontal line – with a width equal to 1 em – so equal to the current font size. It is the largest of the three most commonly-used dashes, the other two being the hyphen and the en dash.
Em dashes have a number of uses in writing. They are sometimes used for self-interruptions – in this case traditionally there is no space either side of them. However, because the em dash is quite long, this can look a bit odd in modern texts, and the en dash is preferable for this case. They are also used for list markers.
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