um

interjection

1. 1

   Expression of hesitation, uncertainty or space filler in conversation.

   Um, I don’t know.

   Let’s see... um... how about this?

   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.

   As the years go by, speech reverts to childhood levels of disfluency, with more pauses, more errors, more repeated words, but even the peak years are not great: up to 8 percent of the average person’s word output consists of meaningless fillers and placeholders like um, uh and er.

2. 2

   Dated spelling of mmm.

   "About the same, wherever you go," he agreed. "Um," I said.

3. 3

   An expression to forcefully call attention to something wrong.

   Um, excuse me!

4. 4

   An expression of shocked disapproval used by a child who witnesses forbidden behavior.

   While I was in her room, Sam walked by and said, “Um, I'm telling!” “You're telling what?” I asked. “You're reading Tori's journal,” she said.

   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!'

verbe

1. 1

   To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy.

   Meanwhile, in the popular mind umming was simply a bad habit, akin to spitting or picking one’s nose.

nom

1. 1

   An occurrence of the interjection "um".

   Although Shakespeare refers to “hums and ha’s,” sifting through etiquette manuals and public-speaking guides turns up scant evidence of a prohibition against ums, ers and uhs, which are profuse in the first recording of Thomas Edison’s voice, in 1888. Mr. Erard, rather ingeniously, traces the prohibition on um and other speech flaws to the advent of radio in the early 1920s.

particle

1. 1

   vieilliAn undifferentiated determiner or article; a miscellaneous linking word, or filler with nonspecific meaning; representation of broken English stereotypically or comically attributed to Native Americans.

   Me be Injun. Him um Growling Bear. Him um heap big chief.

   “me heap brave—me talk to um white man so[…] me good injun, like um white man, mebbe so, ugh!”

Formes

pluriel

ums

passé

ummed

participe passé

ummed

participe présent

umming

3ᵉ personne du singulier

ums