em

Meanings

1. 1
   pron

   an informal, usually unstressed form of them, commonly written ’em

   US /əm/ UK /əm/

   Put ’em on the table and I will sort them later.

2. 2
   noun

   a unit of typographic width equal to the current font size

   US /ɛm/ UK /ɛm/

   The designer set the paragraph indent to one em.

Appears in

The pronoun descends from Middle English hem, an unstressed object form of they, and was later understood as a shortening of them. The typographic noun is the spoken name of the letter m, traditionally associated with a piece of type as wide as it was high.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary