umm
interjection, verb
umm is spelled U-M-M: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an interjection, umm means “Alternative form of um” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in umm?
| Letters | 3: U-M-M |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.7 times per million words; the 13,496th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is umm?
Umm appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce umm?
Umm has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Words people confuse with umm
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: um.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with umm?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as umm.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: mum.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of umm
- umms present, singular, he/she/it
- umming participle, present
- ummed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does umm mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
interjection
- 1
Alternative form of um.
- How does a plane fly?
noun
- 1
Initialism of universal measuring machine.
verb
- 1
Alternative form of um (“to make the umm sound to express confusion or hesitancy”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).