Long command name for horizontal space ~

The short command \, has (more or less) the long command equivalent \thinspace. - What is the long command for the unbreakable space ~?

Also, is there a long command for a space which is *just a little bit shorter than a space? (For situations like fig. 1, where fig\,1 puts the two parts too close and fig.\@ 1 IMHO is to far from each other.)

~ is defined by

\def~{\nobreakspace{}}


so \nobreakspace

A word space adds a space defined by the font but a typical value is

....\glue 3.33333 plus 1.66666 minus 1.11111


so \hspace{.2em plus .1em minus .1em} would typically be a smaller, but still stretchy, space.

• Thanks for the pointer! I had a little look around and found the dimensions \fontdimen2 et al. So I think a more general approach could be the command \hspace{0.8\fontdimen2\font plus 0.8\fontdimen3\font minus 0.8\fontdimen4\font}. If I define a macro with this, I'm set. :-) – halloleo Sep 29 '13 at 9:53
• Only remaining question: Is \hspace unbreakable as is \nobreakspace? – halloleo Sep 29 '13 at 9:54
• @halloleo Ah OK I nearly mentioned the font dimens but I thought it might look a bit scary, it's hard to know sometimes:-) – David Carlisle Sep 29 '13 at 9:54
• @halloleo \hspace is breakable (like a word space) \nobreakspace is \leavevmode\nobreak\  so you can similarly use \leavevmode\nobreak\hspace{...} – David Carlisle Sep 29 '13 at 9:56
• Isn't \hspace*{...} unbreakable though? – A.Ellett Sep 29 '13 at 14:52