em
noun
the letter M, m.
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em
1 American
[em]
/ ɛm /
noun
-
ems
plural
-
the letter M, m.
-
Also called mut, mutton. Printing.
-
the square of any size of type used as the unit of measurement for matter printed in that type size.
-
(originally) the portion of a line of type occupied by the letter M in type of the same size.
-
adjective
'em
2
American
[uhm]
/ əm /
pronoun
Informal.
Em
3
American
Symbol, Physical Chemistry.
EM
4
American
abbreviation
-
electronic mail.
-
electron microscope; electron microscopy.
-
end matched.
-
Engineer of Mines.
-
enlisted man; enlisted men.
em-
5
American
em-
6
American
E.M.
7
American
abbreviation
-
Earl Marshal.
-
Engineer of Mines.
em
1
British
/ ɛm /
noun
-
Also called: mutton, mut. the square of a body of any size of type, used as a unit of measurement
-
Also called: pica em, pica. a unit of measurement used in printing, equal to one sixth of an inch
'em
2
British
/ əm /
pronoun
em-
3
British
prefix
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of em1
First recorded in 1860–65
Origin of 'em2
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English hem, Old English heom, dative and accusative plural of he 1
Vocabulary lists containing em
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That makes sense; em dashes are easy to spot, and I’ve consciously used them less as the internet has flooded with them.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
“Take em all,” the billionaire co-founder of Politico texted to the editor of his news startup, Notus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
The turnover ➡️ The easy deuce for Khamenia @DukeMBB makes em pay.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2026
“The em dash is now a GPT-ism and is not advisable unless you want people to think your writing is the output of a LLM,” wrote a user named energy123 on Hacker News.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
“One, two, three,” Mae Mobley start counting em.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
We gotta get all of ’em out of here!”
From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2026
One flashed “Hook ‘em Horns,” the university’s proud hand signal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 20, 2026
“At the end, the guy who wins Angler of the Year had to catch ‘em with it and catch ‘em without it,” says Cory Johnston.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
Parton told Soboroff she was singing about “All of ‘em.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
“What in blazes do you two see in them? Can’t eat ’em.
From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate
Spinner Linsey Smith, all-rounder Em Arlott and batter Paige Scholfield were among the other players to attract fees of more than £100,000.
From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2026
England internationals Em Arlott, Amy Jones, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn and Linsey Smith are among the women's players to enter the draft at the £50,000 reserve price.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
L.A. beans though, either Counter Culture or Go Get Em Tiger would be my beans of choice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2026
Much like “Let God Sort Em Out,” the Clipse’s performance further solidified why they’ve been in the game for more than 20 years and why they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2025
“Wow, she just exploded,” Bridge heard someone say after Em scored a goal during the first game of the season.
From "Goodbye Stranger" by Rebecca Stead
The almost parabolic moves in parts of EM equities have been driven by earnings, as strong demand has collided with shortages and supply has struggled to catch up, he said in an interview.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
“We have done a quick review of the 10 largest fundamental EM peers. We can say we have more than 20 stocks in our portfolio that are not in our peer universe,” Cho said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026
EM earnings have been revised “meaningfully” higher, providing a tailwind and a way to diversify exposure to AI beyond the U.S., she said.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 22, 2026
“EM debt is much less volatile than EM equities with similar returns over time,” she says.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
Fresh as the flower, That hath pour To wound my heart, And ease my smart, Of me, poor thief, In prison bound— EM.
From Fair Em by Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works)
Font Bureau even did some customization for us—they provided us with wider em- and en-dashes for our home page headline font, for example, since our headlines are full of em-dashes.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2013
Dr. Allen Sinclair Will, 65, founder & director of Rutgers' Department of Journalism, onetime city editor of the Baltimore Sun; of cerebral em- bolism complicated by pneumonia; in Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the future, more and more of them may em- ulate the experiments of Tanzania and Kenya.
From Time Magazine Archive
The forms en- and em- are of French origin.
From New Word-Analysis by William Swinton
Most of his children were from home; some seeking em- ployment; some were already settled in homes of their own.
From Our nig, or, sketches from the life of a free black, in a two-story white house, North Showing that slavery's shadows fall even there by Harriet E. Wilson
Arthur is in part a crafty composite of the writer E.M.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2025
Soucy focuses on the highs of Merchant and Ivory’s films, which began in the 1960s with films like “The Householder” and “Shakespeare-Wallah,” and developed over the next two decades before their 1985 adaptation of E.M.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2024
The film, an adaptation of the novel by E.M.
From New York Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
So begins the airy, delectable Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala adaptation of E.M.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
This compensating arrangement is also helpful, as has been said before, for calibrating the E.M. value of the deflection.
From Response in the Living and Non-Living by Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose
And with compositors setting 700-1,500 ems an hour, and an American newspaper of 1880 averaging about 75,000 ems of copy, typesetting was one of a newspaper’s biggest costs.
From Economist ● Mar. 30, 2018
Newsham said prompt treatment by fire and ems personnel at the scene helped to improve the boy’s prospects.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 10, 2017
They will be able to share their experiences with other ems.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2016
Hanson doesn’t think that ems must necessarily live unhappy lives.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 9, 2016
From now I pays the union schedoole, the same bein' five cents a thousand ems more than former.
From Wolfville Days by Alfred Henry Lewis
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
