Use a hyphen in certain words to avoid ambiguity - Hyphenation - Mechanics

Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Use a hyphen in certain words to avoid ambiguity
Hyphenation
Mechanics

Without the hyphen, there would be no way to distinguish between words such as re-creation and recreation.

Bicycling in the city is my favorite form of recreation.

The film was praised for its astonishing re-creation of nineteenth-century London.

Hyphens are sometimes used to separate awkward double or triple letters in compound words (anti-intellectual, cross-stitch).