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Em
Definitions
- 1 Abbreviation of electromagnetic. abbreviation, alt-of, not-comparable
"Secondary drone got EM spectrum on the kill."
- 1 a form of hesitant speech, or an expression of uncertainty Ireland, Scotland
"She was abused by, em... David, I think. That was his name, he's a real em... what's the word, narcissist. You should really stay away from him."
- 1 A diminutive of the female given names Emily, Emma, or Emmeline.
"And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!"
- 2 Clipping of Eminem. abbreviation, alt-of, clipping
- 1 The name of the Latin script letter M/m.
"It said, in a whispering, buzzing voice, "Gee-you-ess-ess-ay-dash-em-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-em-eye-en-gee-oh-dash-pee-eye-pee-dash-pee-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-pee-eye-en-gee-oh.""
- 2 The name of the letter м/М in Cyrillic alphabets.
- 3 Alternative letter-case form of em. alt-of
- 4 Initialism of emergency medicine. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 5 a linear unit (1/6 inch) used in printing wordnet
Show 11 more definitions
- 6 A unit of measurement equal to the height of the type in use.
"Insert here a one-em dash or long dash."
- 7 Abbreviation of electron microscope. abbreviation, alt-of, countable
- 8 a quad with a square body wordnet
- 9 Abbreviation of electron microscopy. abbreviation, alt-of, uncountable
- 10 Initialism of electromagnetism. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable
- 11 Initialism of electronic monitoring. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 12 Initialism of emerging market. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 13 Initialism of enlisted man. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 14 Initialism of effective microorganism. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism
- 15 Initialism of energy management. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 16 Initialism of English medium. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, initialism, uncountable
- 1 Alternative form of 'em. alt-of, alternative
- 2 A gender-neutral third-person singular object pronoun, the objective case of ey or e, equivalent to the singular them and coordinate with him and her. gender-neutral, nonstandard, objective, rare, singular, third-person
"If the author uses such notation, it should be up to Em to indicate Eir intentions clearly, but there’s no harm checking first."
Etymology
Attested since 1808. In typography, the em is named after the em quadrat (later called em quad), from m quadrat, a metal type used in letterpress typesetting, which is as wide as the point size of the font.
See 'em.
Coined by Christine M. Elverson by removing the "th" from them, perhaps influenced by the pre-existing em/'em, now often perceived as apheretic forms of them (though originally unrelated).
Onomatopoeic. Compare um.
From Russian эм (em), Ukrainian ем (em), etc.
See also for "em"
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