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em

Pronunciation: /ˈɛm/

The English word “em” has 6 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The name of the Latin script letter M/m.
  2. A unit of measurement equal to the height of the type in use.
  3. A relative unit of sizing defined in terms of the font size.
  4. The name of the letter м/М in Cyrillic alphabets.

pronoun

  1. A gender-neutral third-person singular object pronoun, the objective case of ey or e, equivalent to the singular them and coordinate with him and her.

interjection

  1. a form of hesitant speech, or an expression of uncertainty

Etymology

Attested since 1808. In typography, the em is named after the em quadrat (later called em quad), from m quadrat, a metal type used in letterpress typesetting, which is as wide as the point size of the font.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.