Word.ws English Dictionary

'm

/əm/

'm verb: am, used especially in I'm. Also the alternative form of 'em.

Verb

’m (clitic)

  1. (clitic) Am, used especially in I'm.
    • What'm I gon' do?
    • “So how'm I not good?”2008, Elizabeth George, Playing for the Ashes, Bantam, →ISBN, page 158
  2. (clitic, dialectal) Various forms of be.
    • You'm no better than a baby when they've clacketed at ye for an hour or two without a word of sense from beginnin' to end.1874, Frances Mary Peard, Thorpe Regis
    • "He'm a bad one. Ooh, he'm a bad one, Mister," and she laughed softly. "I seed 'im flying, riding on the wind," she laughed again, "and the moon be'ind 'im, lightin' up the way. They'm close as sisters, moon and Devil."1962, John Le Carre, A Murder of Quality

Noun

’m

  1. Represents the word madam or ma'am when used as a formal address of a female; as in yes'm and no'm.

Also used as

'm is also the alternative form of 'em.

Origin of 'm

Contraction of am.

Contraction of madam/ma'am. Typologically compare Russian -с (-s).

Phrases with 'm

Questions about 'm

What does 'm mean?
'm means am, used especially in I'm.
What part of speech is 'm?
'm can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce 'm?
'm is pronounced /əm/.

Words near 'm in the dictionary

  1. 'long
  2. 'longst
  3. 'low
  4. 'lude
  5. 'ludes
  6. 'm
  7. 'magination
  8. 'maginations
  9. 'mater
  10. 'maters
  11. 'mato

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 'm (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-'m.wav.

Cite this entry: “'m.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/%27m. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.