See um in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for um meaning in English (9.1kB)
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"text": "Um, I don’t know."
},
{
"text": "Let’s see... um... how about this?"
},
{
"ref": "2002, Newsweek, volume 140, page lxxx",
"text": "It's a great test of the claims of open-source gurus, who say that a self-motivated community can outcode any team working for a single employer—like, um, Microsoft.",
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"word": "er"
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{
"word": "hmm"
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"word": "uh"
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"(chiefly US) Dated spelling of mmm."
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"text": "Um, excuse me!",
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"(US) An expression to forcefully call attention to something wrong."
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"ref": "2011, Kimberly Willis Holt, Piper Reed, Clubhouse Queen",
"text": "While I was in her room, Sam walked by and said, “Um, I'm telling!”\n“You're telling what?” I asked.\n“You're reading Tori's journal,” she said.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Sarah Strangeways, The Gingerbread House, page 13",
"text": "Mair used to look after Laura. If anyone threatened to tease her, Mair would stand up straight, point her finger at the enemy and shout, 'Um! I'm telling on you!'",
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}
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"(UK, childish) An expression of shocked disapproval used by a child who witnesses forbidden behavior."
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"To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy."
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"(intransitive) To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy."
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{
"text": "He um Growling Bear. He um heap big chief."
},
{
"ref": "1871, “Grand camp meeting on Bear River”, in The Keepapitchinin, volume III, page 3",
"text": "me heap brave—me talk to um white man so[…] me good injun, like um white man, mebbe so, ugh!",
"type": "quotation"
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"An undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans."
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"(dated, sometimes humorous, often offensive) An undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans."
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"text": "Um, I don’t know."
},
{
"text": "Let’s see... um... how about this?"
},
{
"ref": "2002, Newsweek, volume 140, page lxxx",
"text": "It's a great test of the claims of open-source gurus, who say that a self-motivated community can outcode any team working for a single employer—like, um, Microsoft.",
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"Dated spelling of mmm."
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"(chiefly US) Dated spelling of mmm."
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"text": "Um, excuse me!",
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"An expression to forcefully call attention to something wrong."
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"(US) An expression to forcefully call attention to something wrong."
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{
"ref": "2011, Kimberly Willis Holt, Piper Reed, Clubhouse Queen",
"text": "While I was in her room, Sam walked by and said, “Um, I'm telling!”\n“You're telling what?” I asked.\n“You're reading Tori's journal,” she said.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2021, Sarah Strangeways, The Gingerbread House, page 13",
"text": "Mair used to look after Laura. If anyone threatened to tease her, Mair would stand up straight, point her finger at the enemy and shout, 'Um! I'm telling on you!'",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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"An expression of shocked disapproval used by a child who witnesses forbidden behavior."
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"(UK, childish) An expression of shocked disapproval used by a child who witnesses forbidden behavior."
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"(intransitive) To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy."
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"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "prepositions",
"head": ""
},
"expansion": "um",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "um",
"name": "en-prep"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "prep",
"senses": [
{
"alt_of": [
{
"word": "umbe"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Alternative form of umbe"
],
"links": [
[
"umbe",
"umbe#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"alternative"
]
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "umb"
},
{
"word": "umbe"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Speech disfluency"
],
"word": "um"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English filled pauses",
"English lemmas",
"English particles",
"English two-letter words"
],
"etymology_number": 3,
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "particle",
"head": "",
"sort": ""
},
"expansion": "um",
"name": "head"
},
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "um",
"name": "en-part"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "particle",
"related": [
{
"word": "um-hum"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English dated terms",
"English humorous terms",
"English offensive terms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "He um Growling Bear. He um heap big chief."
},
{
"ref": "1871, “Grand camp meeting on Bear River”, in The Keepapitchinin, volume III, page 3",
"text": "me heap brave—me talk to um white man so[…] me good injun, like um white man, mebbe so, ugh!",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans."
],
"links": [
[
"humorous",
"humorous"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(dated, sometimes humorous, often offensive) An undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans."
],
"tags": [
"dated",
"humorous",
"offensive",
"often",
"sometimes"
]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Speech disfluency"
],
"word": "um"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.