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hmm

British

/ mm /

interjection

a sound made when considering or puzzling over something

"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

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.

“I was reading the Bible the other day, and there were em dashes in the book of James, and I was like, hmm, is this AI-generated?,”

From The Wall Street Journal • May 6, 2026

Kate Mansey, an assistant editor at The Times, was more circumspect: "I'm not quite sure what to say about this one, except, hmm..."

From BBC • May 22, 2024

Garrison: I used to just sit in my front yard and pull weeds while we talked, just like, “Mm hmm, tell me more.”

From Slate • Feb. 24, 2024

We dug right in and said, "hmm ..." pretty much right away.

From Salon • Feb. 21, 2024

I felt nervous, as I invariably do when someone says my name twice with a hmm in between.

From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023