Word.ws English Dictionary

ems

ems is the plural of em.

Meaning of em

Noun (1)

em (plural ems)

  1. The name of the Latin script letter M/m.
    • It said, in a whispering, buzzing voice, "Gee-you-ess-ess-ay-dash-em-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-em-eye-en-gee-oh-dash-pee-eye-pee-dash-pee-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-pee-eye-en-gee-oh."2004, Will Rogers, The Stonking Steps, page 170
  2. A unit of measurement equal to the height of the type in use.
    • Insert here a one-em dash or long dash.
    Synonyms:
    quad, em quad, mutton, mut
  3. A relative unit of sizing defined in terms of the font size.

Noun (2)

em (plural ems)

  1. The name of the letter м/М in Cyrillic alphabets.

See all 7 meanings of em

Noun (1) capitalized: EMS

EMS (countable and uncountable, plural EMSs or EMSes)

  1. (US, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of emergency medical service or emergency medical services, an organization, often part of a local government, whose purpose is to provide emergency prehospital care to the public; the care that it provides.
    • “Training to be a paramedic.”
      “EMS? For real? You want to scrape drunks off the sidewalk for a living?”
      “I want to do something that matters, if that’s what you mean.”2014, Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven, Picador (2022), page 10
    • But EMS workers present a unique problem over other health care workers who are based in hospitals and clinics, they often are coming into people’s homes, Barzilay said, adding that they often respond to calls from the elderly or immunocompromised.2020 March 21, Sonia Moghe, “EMS workers expected to keep working after coronavirus exposure”, in CNN
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of electrical muscle stimulation
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of encephalomyosynangiosis
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of express mail service, a type of international express mail services.
  6. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of electronics manufacturing service, a type of OEM (original equipment manufacturer) service.
  7. (abbreviation, historical, initialism) Initialism of Expanded Memory Specification.
  8. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of environmental management system.
  9. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of electromagnetic suspension

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Ems

Ems

  1. A river in northwestern Germany.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Ems

Ems

  1. A diminutive of the female given names Emma and Emily.

Noun (2) capitalized: Ems

Ems

  1. Alternative letter-case form of ems.

Noun (3) capitalized: EMs

EMs

  1. (plural) plural of EM

Forms of ems

pluralEMSs
pluralEMSes

Origin of ems

Abbreviation.

From German Ems, from the Roman name, Latin Amisia.

From the clipping of Emma or Emily + -s (hypocoristic suffix).

Questions about ems

What does ems mean?
Ems means a river in northwestern Germany.
What is ems the plural of?
Ems is the plural of em.
What part of speech is ems?
Ems can be a noun or a proper noun.
What is the plural of ems?
The plural of ems is EMSs.

Words near ems in the dictionary

  1. Emriches
  2. Emrick
  3. Emricks
  4. EMRs
  5. Emry
  6. ems
  7. EMSB
  8. Emscherian
  9. EMSEC
  10. emself
  11. Emsian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ems (page history and authors); EMS (page history and authors); Ems (page history and authors); EMs (page history and authors); em (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:

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