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.
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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:
Marcy eliminates em dashes and sometimes swaps in sentences of his own, even though he knows he tends toward the run-on variety.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
The turnover ➡️ The easy deuce for Khamenia @DukeMBB makes em pay.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 30, 2026
In my writing, ChatGPT tells me I use 11 em dashes every 1,000 words.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
The news drew praise from public figures, including Jennifer Lopez, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Bruno Mars, who wrote on X, “Go get em Bad Bunny!”
From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2025
“I’m on ask em again,” she says, leaning forward.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
Pokémon fans have spent the past three decades trying to catch 'em all - and since the beginning this hunt has often taken place outside the home.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
“You bring ‘em in, you sit ‘em down and they talk. That’s all ‘Cheers’ was,” Burrows told The Times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
"I think let 'em play," Trump said in late April.
From Barron's ● May 18, 2026
In “Pinball Wizard,” the Who’s Roger Daltrey sings: “Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve played the silver ball / From Soho down to Brighton, I must’ve played ’em all.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
“It is. So instead I took that, one of Carlyle’s caps with his name in it, and a photograph of him and two teammates, wrapped it all up tight, and stashed ’em somewhere safe.”
From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone
“Let God Sort Em Out” came 16 years after their last release, which had marked the end of the Virginia Beach-born group amid a “come to God” moment for Malice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026
It left Bell as the most experienced of a pace group that includes Issy Wong and Lauren Filer, plus all-rounders Danielle Gibson, Em Arlott and Freya Kemp.
From BBC ● Apr. 9, 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
He faces competition from fellow rap maverick Tyler, The Creator with his wildly inventive Chromakopia; and reunited hip-hop duo Clipse, whose Let God Sort Em Out is their first release since 2009.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
Em sighed and, still wearing her coat, lay back on the coffee table.
From "Goodbye Stranger" by Rebecca Stead
Strong performance in the EM space has increasingly been driven by a handful of stocks trading in Taiwan and South Korea, which play host to some of the world’s most influential AI hardware companies.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
In pre-market trading Thursday TSMC’s U.S.-listed depositary receipts were 1.87% higher at $440 and the EM ETF was indicating a gain of 2.52% at 70.29.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 18, 2026
EM economies are taking the brunt of the whiplash.
From Barron's ● May 23, 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
The line NC is called the sine of the angle of incidence NDC, and EM the sine of the angle of refraction MDE.
From Wireless Transmission of Photographs Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged 1919 by Marcus J. Martin
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
Enmesh, en-mesh′, Emmesh, em-, Immesh, im-, v.t. to catch in a mesh or net, to entangle.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various
Arthur is in part a crafty composite of the writer E.M.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 4, 2025
When circumstance, and one’s own body, seem to conspire against you, one can, as E.M.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 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 beauty of her study is the range of her examples: We’re unlikely to see Charles Darwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Frederick Douglass, Matthew Arnold and E.M.
From New York Times ● Mar. 10, 2023
Hence it is seen that when a wave of disturbance is propagated along the plant, there is a concomitant wave of radial E.M. variation.
From Response in the Living and Non-Living by Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose
Linotype swifts, as praised in the Linotype Bulletin in 1921, could easily hit sustained rates above 10,000 ems an hour.
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
Definitions 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.
