• IPA: /hɛm/
  • (pin-pen) IPA: /hɪm/

1. Used to fill in the gap of a pause with a vocalized sound.

hem (plural hems)

1. An utterance or sound of the voice like "hem", often indicative of hesitation or doubt, sometimes used to call attention.

   • his morning hems

hem (hems, present participle hemming; past and past participle hemmed)

1. To make the sound expressed by the word hem; to hesitate in speaking.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance)​, William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene i]:

     Hem, and stroke thy beard.

• Russian: хмыкнуть

• IPA: /hɛm/
  • (pin-pen) IPA: /hɪm/

hem (plural hems)

1. (sewing) The border of an article of clothing doubled back and stitched together to finish the edge and prevent it from fraying.
2. A rim or margin of something.
   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene iv]:

     Entombed upon the very hem o' th' sea

3. In sheet metal design, a rim or edge folded back on itself to create a smooth edge and to increase strength or rigidity.

• French: ourlet
• German: Saum
• Italian: orlo
• Portuguese: bainha
• Russian: ободо́к
• Spanish: dobladillo, bastilla

• French: marge
• German: Rand
• Russian: край

hem (hems, present participle hemming; past and past participle hemmed)

1. (intransitive) (in sewing) To make a hem.
2. (transitive): To put hem on an article of clothing, to edge or put a border on something.
3. (transitive): To surround something or someone in a confining way.

• French: ourler
• German: säumen
• Russian: подшива́ть

• French: ourler
• German: säumen
• Portuguese: embainhar, bainhar
• Russian: подшива́ть

• German: einengen
• Portuguese: cercar
• Russian: окаймля́ть

1. Obsolete form of 'em.

   • And wente to the kinge and to the queene, and said to hem with a glad cheer.

   • 1485, William Caxton, Paris and Vienne

     For eyther of hem mayntened.

   • He prayis hem to lyue releg[ious] lyff[is] and to luk waraly for the cummyng of the lord.

   • ‘What thinke you of this English, tel me I pray you.’ ‘It is a language that wyl do you good in England but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing.’ ‘Is it not used then in other countreyes?’ ‘No sir, with whom wyl you that they speake?’ ‘With English marchants.’ ‘English marchantes, when they are out of England, it liketh hem not, and they doo not speake it.

   • Tho to the greene wood they speeden hem all.

   • 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour

     Except we make hem such.

   • They go forth on Holydays and gather hem by the seashore.

   • The mayor and alderman or any six of hem.

   • So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages.

1. Surname