Word.ws English Dictionary

dem

/dɛm/

dem is the nonstandard form of them.

Meaning of them

Pronoun

them (third-person, personal pronoun, objective case of they)

  1. (in plural, personal, pronoun, third-person) Used as the direct object of a verb.
    • She treated them for a cold.
  2. (in plural, personal, pronoun, third-person) Used as the indirect object of a verb.
    • She wrote them a letter.
  3. (in plural, personal, pronoun, third-person) Used as the object of a preposition.
    • Give it to them.
  4. (colloquial, in plural, nonstandard, personal, pronoun, third-person) As a grammatical subject or object when joined with a conjunction.
    • [...] and now them and the Goo Goo Dolls are playing together.
  5. (in plural, personal, pronoun, third-person) Used in isolation or apposition, or (sometimes proscribed) as the complement of the copula (be).
    • Who was there? —Them.
  6. (personal, pronoun, singular, third-person, occasionally proscribed) Used as the direct object of a verb.
    • If a student has an inappropriate question, whatever you do, do not berate them.

See all 13 meanings of them

Determiner

dem

  1. (Caribbean, Jamaica, Multicultural-London-English, slang) (clitic, suffix) A group of.
    • Love tenderness is what the woman dem want1956, “Give Her Love”, performed by Chin’s Calypso Sextet
    • Chillin' wiv da man dem
    • Jammin' wiv da man dem
    • It's all good in the hood wiv da man dem2009, Dizzee Rascal, Chillin' Wiv Da Man Dem

Noun (1) capitalized: DEM

DEM (countable and uncountable, plural DEMs)

  1. (abbreviation, countable, initialism) Initialism of digital elevation model.
    • The DEMs and reference data used here are a mix of different vertical reference systems: […]2020, Guy Jean-Pierre Schumann, Paul Bates, editors, The Need for a High-Accuracy, Open-Access Global Digital Elevation Model, Frontiers Media SA, →ISBN, page 21
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of diethyl malonate.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of digital experience monitoring.

Proper noun capitalized: DEM

DEM

  1. (US, abbreviation) Abbreviation of Democratic Party.

Noun (2) capitalized: Dem

Dem (plural Dems)

  1. (US, abbreviation, clipping) Clipping of Democrat.

Forms of dem

pluralDEMs
pluralDems

Words formed from dem

Phrases with dem

Words that rhyme with dem

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dem

What does dem mean?
Dem means (clitic, suffix) A group of.
What is dem the nonstandard form of?
Dem is the nonstandard form of them.
What part of speech is dem?
Dem can be a determiner, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce dem?
Dem is pronounced /dɛm/.

Words near dem in the dictionary

  1. delycate
  2. Delysid
  3. Delzell
  4. Delzells
  5. Delémont
  6. dem
  7. dem.
  8. demade
  9. demaggot
  10. demaggoted
  11. demaggoting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dem (page history and authors); DEM (page history and authors); Dem (page history and authors); them (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)-Vealhurl-dem.wav.

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