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  • eme
    eme
    noun
  • -eme
    -eme
    a suffix used principally in linguistics to form nouns with the sense “significant contrastive unit,” at the level of language specified by the stem.

eme

1 American  
[eem] / im /

noun

Chiefly Scot.
  1. friend.

  2. uncle.


-eme 2 American  
  1. a suffix used principally in linguistics to form nouns with the sense “significant contrastive unit,” at the level of language specified by the stem.

    morpheme; tagmeme.


-eme British  

suffix

  1. linguistics indicating a minimal distinctive unit of a specified type in a language

    morpheme

    phoneme

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of eme1

before 1000; Middle English eem ( e ), Old English ēam; cognate with Dutch oom, German (arch.) Ohm, Oheim; akin to uncle

Origin of -eme2

Extracted from phoneme

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:

They are called olor’ eme, which means dancers’ houses.

From The Mafulu Mountain People of British New Guinea by Robert Wood Williamson

She retorted, "O my son, well I wot thou haddest an uncle, but he is now dead nor am I ware that thou hast other eme."

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 13 by Sir Richard Francis Burton

Ar. eme or uime, the mouth of a river, uimelian, to be new.

From The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations by Daniel Garrison Brinton

So this young Sir Tristram rode unto his eme, King Mark of Cornwall.

From Le Mort d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Sir Thomas Malory

This eme or emia was doubtless a cassowary—probably that of Ceram.

From Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects by James Roxburgh McClymont

The term meme originates from the Greek root mim, meaning “mime” or “mimic,” and the English suffix -eme.

From Textbooks Dec. 21, 2021

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