Word.ws English Dictionary

tom

/tɒm//tɑm/

tom noun: the male of the domesticated cat, especially if not neutered. Also the clipping of tom-tom.

Noun (1)

tom (plural toms)

  1. The male of the domesticated cat, especially if not neutered.
  2. The male of the turkey.
  3. The male of the orangutan.
  4. The male of certain other animals.
    Synonyms:
    male, buck, stag
  5. (UK, dated, slang) A female prostitute.
  6. (US, slang) A lesbian.
  7. (obsolete) The jack of trumps in the card game gleek.
  8. (UK, obsolete, regional) A close-stool.

Noun (2)

tom (plural toms)

  1. (UK, greengrocers' slang) A tomato (the fruit).
    • Toms 90p a pound
    • “I'd like sausage, eggs, bacon, toms, mushies, beans – oh, and some fried bread,” said Mike.2009, Mark Penny, Jonathan Penny, The Golden Pig, page 160

Noun (3)

tom (uncountable)

  1. (Cockney, slang) jewellery

Verb (1)

tom (third-person singular simple present toms, present participle tomming, simple past and past participle tommed)

  1. (derogatory, intransitive) To act in an obsequiously servile manner toward white authority.

Verb (2)

tom (third-person singular simple present toms, present participle tomming, simple past and past participle tommed)

  1. To dig out a hole below the hatch cover of a bulker and fill it with cargo or weights to aid stability.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Tom

Tom (plural Toms)

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Thomas, also used as a formal male given name.
    • Poor Tom's a-cold.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • "Good,—that's a whack. What's your name?"
      "Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer."
      "That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me Tom, will you?"1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VI, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 70
  2. A nickname for a common man.

Noun (4) capitalized: Tom

Tom (plural Toms)

  1. (abbreviation, ellipsis, uncommon) Ellipsis of Uncle Tom.
    • I thought it was nice for them [civil rights volunteers] to come in here. But they wasn’t welcome among white people. The black people welcomed them with open arms, but they wasn’t welcomed by the white people. And the churches began to burn: Everetts Chapel and Union Hill. I’ll be honest and tell...2007 April, Roy DeBerry, Aviva Futorian, Stephen Klein, John Lyons, quoting Jessie Mae Epps, “Beginnings”, in Voices from the Mississippi Hill Country: The Benton County Civil Rights Movement...
  2. (US, rare, numismatic slang) A United States two-dollar bill.
    • Toms: two-dollar bills bearing the portrait of President Thomas Jefferson[1981, Ralph DeSola, Abbreviations Dictionary, expanded international 6th edition, New York, N.Y.: Elsevier, →ISBN, page 804, column 2
    • The article on CNN.com says the Treasury has $96 million in $2s in their vaults. They are printing new ones just to assure a supply. The new ones will be 2003 series with the same design as now. Printing more will have no direct effect on whether they circulate more, but articles like the recent...2003 June 12, PossumTrot, “Treasury to Print More $2 Bills:)”, in rec.collecting.paper-money (Usenet), archived from the original on 22 Jun 2025

Noun (5) capitalized: Tom

Tom (uncountable)

  1. (euphemistic, personification) Synonym of menstruation.
    • Sorry, maybe next week. Uncle Tom is visiting.
    • Maybe later. Tom is in town.
    Synonyms:
    menstruation

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Tom

Tom

  1. A large, deep-toned bell, or a particularly notable example of one.
    • They had a thick rim, and when struck with pieces of wood, gave out a tone deeper than that of some of the Great Toms renowned in belldom.1857, William Chambers, Robert Chambers, “Something about bells”, in Chambers's Journal, volume 28, number 207, page 398
    • After these came innumerable little boys bearing little bells, which made little noises in comparison to the "Big Tom" that preceded them.1857, “An earthquake in Honduras”, in Harper's Magazine

Noun (6) capitalized: TOM

TOM

  1. (abbreviation, acronym, euphemistic) Acronym of time of the month.
  2. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of Translocon on Outer Membrane.

Noun (7) capitalized: ToM

ToM (countable and uncountable, plural ToMs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of theory of mind.
    • Thus there are stages of gaze following, followed by primary ToM, then secondary ToM, then perspective taking, with the speed of transitions influenced by experience[…]2017, Robert Sapolsky, chapter 7, in Behave, Penguin, →ISBN

Also used as

tom is also the clipping of tom-tom.

tom meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tom in Hindi

male cat
बिल्ला billā

tom in Tamil

டாம்

tom in Marathi

टॉम, टॉमला

tom in Urdu

male cat
بلّا billā
More languagesFewer languages
tom in Bengali
টম, টমকে, টমের কাছে
tom in Telugu
పోతుపిల్లి pōtupilli
tom in Malayalam
കണ്ടൻപൂച്ച kaṇṭaṉpūcca
tom in Kannada
ಟಾಮ್, ಟೊಮ್, ಟಾಮ್ಗೆ
tom in Punjabi
ਟੌਮ, ਟਾਮ, ਟੋਮ
tom in Gujarati
ટોમ, ટોમે, ટૉમ
tom in Odia
ଟମ୍, ଟମ, ଟମ୍ଙ୍କୁ
tom in Assamese
বোন্দা bünda
tom in Nepali
टम, टोम
tom in Arabic
قِطّ qiṭṭ
tom in Malay
kucing jantan
tom in Myanmar
ကြောင်ထီး kraunghti:
Sindhi
ٽامڪ ṭāmk
Kashmiri
برٛور brōr, بیٛور byōr

Examples of tom in a sentence

  • Tom was standing right in front of the TV, blocking everyone's view.
  • Tom was skeptical when Paul told him that he saw Bigfoot.
  • Tom is very outgoing and enjoys meeting people; his brother, on the other hand, is painfully shy.

All 40 example sentences with tom

Synonyms of tom

All synonyms of tom

Forms of tom

Noun
pluraltoms
pluralToms
pluralToMs
Verb
third-person singular presenttoms
present participletomming
past participletommed
pasttommed
Proper noun
pluralToms

Plural of tom: toms

Origin of tom

English tom From generic use of the proper name Tom.

Shortened from tomato

Rhyming slang from tomfoolery.

Words formed from tom

Phrases with tom

29 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with tom

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tom

What does tom mean?
Tom means the male of the domesticated cat, especially if not neutered.
What is tom in Hindi?
Tom in Hindi is बिल्ला (billā). See Tom meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tom?
Tom can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tom?
Tom is pronounced /tɒm/ (UK).
What is the plural of tom?
The plural of tom is toms.

Words near tom in the dictionary

  1. tolypite
  2. tolypyrin
  3. tolypyrine
  4. tolzey
  5. tolzeys
  6. tom
  7. Tom and Jerries
  8. Tom and Jerry
  9. Tom and Jerryish
  10. Tom and Jerryism
  11. Tom Bawcock's Eve

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tom (page history and authors); Tom (page history and authors); TOM (page history and authors); ToM (page history and authors); tom (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tom (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-tom.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Tom.wav.

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