hem and haw

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hem 1

 (hĕm)
n.
1. An edge or border on a piece of cloth, especially a finished edge, as for a garment or curtain, made by folding an edge under and stitching it down.
2. The height or level of the bottom edge of a skirt, dress, or coat; a hemline.
tr.v. hemmed, hem·ming, hems
1. To fold back and stitch down the edge of.
2. To surround and shut in; enclose: a valley hemmed in by mountains. See Synonyms at enclose.
[Middle English, from Old English hem, hemm.]
hem′mer n.

hem 2

 (hĕm)
n.
A short cough or clearing of the throat made especially to gain attention, warn another, hide embarrassment, or fill a pause in speech.
intr.v. hemmed, hem·ming, hems
1. To utter a hem.
2. To hesitate in speech.
Idiom:
hem and haw
To be hesitant and indecisive; equivocate: "a leader who cannot make up his or her mind, never knows what to do, hems and haws" (Margaret Thatcher).
[From Middle English heminge, coughing, of imitative origin.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Verb1.hem and haw - utter `hems' and `haws'; indicated hesitation; "He hemmed and hawed when asked to address the crowd"
pause, hesitate - interrupt temporarily an activity before continuing; "The speaker paused"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in periodicals archive ?
Tell the Google Assistant to book a table for four at 6:00 pm, it tends to the phone call in a human-sounding voice complete with "speech disfluencies" such as "ums" and "uhs."
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Electrophysiological evidences have reinforced the hypothesis that stuttering is associated with a deficit in the modulation of the cortical auditory system during speech planning and that this may contribute to inefficient monitoring of auditory feedback and, consequently, result in speech disfluencies [11].
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They are also the most frequent speech disfluencies; filled pauses occur more often than any other speech disfluencies (repetitions, word truncations, etc.) [6], signalling not only of breaks in speech production process, but also of explication of this process [5].
Experiments on Detection of Voiced Hesitations in Russian Spontaneous Speech
Omit minor speech disfluencies, ambient sounds, and recording stops.
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Spontaneous spoken discourse has traditionally been approached through discourse analysis, and through comprehension studies that have focused on the processing of speech disfluencies and prosodic cues.
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Results supported the hypothesis that speech disfluencies would decrease as the meaningfulness of the fluent speaker role increased across the course of treatment.
8 Talking back to stuttering: constructivist contributions to stuttering treatment
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