uh
/ʌː/
uh interjection: expression of thought, confusion, or uncertainty. Also the pronunciation spelling of a.
Interjection
- Expression of thought, confusion, or uncertainty.
- Uh, who was that?
- Expression of discomfort or reservation; a hesitation preceding awkward information or innuendo.
- He's receiving some, uh, special attention from the manager.
- Space filler or pause during conversation.
- Uh, let me see...
- As the years go by, speech reverts to childhood levels of disfluency, with more pauses, more errors, more repeated words, but even the peak years are not great: up to 8 percent of the average person’s word output consists of meaningless fillers and placeholders like um, uh and er.2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013
Noun
uh (plural uhs)
- An occurrence of the interjection "uh".
- Although Shakespeare refers to “hums and ha’s,” sifting through etiquette manuals and public-speaking guides turns up scant evidence of a prohibition against ums, ers and uhs, which are profuse in the first recording of Thomas Edison’s voice, in 1888. Mr. Erard, rather ingeniously, traces the...2007 August 24, William Grimes, “Uh, Lead My Rips: No More Bloopers”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Jan 2013
Also used as
uh is also the pronunciation spelling of a.
uh is also the alternative form of a (“The fourth semiquaver (sixteenth note) of a.
uh meaning in Tagalog, Malay and Vietnamese
uh in Tagalog
- expression of confusion or uncertainty
- ah, eh
- space filler or pause during conversation
- ah, eh
uh in Malay
- expression of confusion or uncertainty
- err
- space filler or pause during conversation
- err
uh in Vietnamese
- space filler or pause during conversation
- ờ
Examples of uh in a sentence
- Uh, um, and well are common filled pauses among English speakers.
- Uh oh. I gotta let one loose.
- Wait, uh - I-I-I should go distract Caine so he doesn't l-listen in on this.
Forms of uh
| plural | uhs |
|---|
Origin of uh
Onomatopoeia of the natural expression of thought. Compare with er.
Phrases with uh
Words that rhyme with uh
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about uh
- What does uh mean?
- Uh means expression of thought, confusion, or uncertainty.
- What is uh in Tagalog?
- Uh in Tagalog is ah, eh. See Uh meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is uh?
- Uh can be an interjection or a noun.
- How do you pronounce uh?
- Uh is pronounced /ʌː/.
Words near uh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: uh (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: en-us-uh.ogg.
Cite this entry: “uh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/uh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
