A hyphenation opportunity is a position where the language and chosen hyphenation rules permit a word to be divided across lines. An explicit soft hyphen can supply one; automatic hyphenation can find others using a language-appropriate resource. These permitted positions become choices for line breaking.[ref]
CSS Text Module Level 3 by World Wide Web Consortium. §5.3: explicit and automatic language-appropriate hyphenation opportunities
Two tests must then be applied. First, is the division permitted by the linguistic rules? Second, does the resulting geometry and cost make it a useful choice? If the material before a break has width 20, an inserted hyphen adds 2, and the available typesetting line width is 21, the resulting 22-unit line fails the rigid-width fitting test despite the linguistic permission.
A discretionary break represents the alternative printed material. The Knuth-Plass line-breaking algorithm can compare that option with later or earlier permitted breaks using typesetting badness and typesetting penalties.
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