Word.ws English Dictionary

umming

umming is the present participle and gerund of um.

Meaning of um

Verb

um (third-person singular simple present ums, present participle umming, simple past and past participle ummed)

  1. (intransitive) To make the um sound to express uncertainty or hesitancy.
    • Meanwhile, in the popular mind umming was simply a bad habit, akin to spitting or picking one’s nose.2007, Michael Erard, Um... Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, page 136

See all 8 meanings of um

Questions about umming

What is umming the present participle and gerund of?
Umming is the present participle and gerund of um.

Words near umming in the dictionary

  1. umma
  2. ummah
  3. ummahs
  4. ummas
  5. ummed
  6. umming
  7. Ummon
  8. umms
  9. Umnak
  10. umngqusho
  11. umnini

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: umming (page history and authors); um (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.

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