Insult vs Em - What's the difference?
insult | em |
(obsolete) To behave in an obnoxious and superior manner (over, against).
*, II.3.3:
To offend (someone) by being rude, insensitive or insolent; to demean or affront (someone).
(obsolete) To leap or trample upon; to make a sudden onset upon.
An action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.
* Savage
* 1987 , Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda :
Anything that causes offence/offense, e.g. by being of an unacceptable quality.
(medicine) Something causing disease or injury to the body or bodily processes.
* 2006 , Stephen G. Lomber, Jos J. Eggermont, Reprogramming the Cerebral Cortex (page 415)
* 2011 , Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford 2011, p. 96:
(obsolete) The act of leaping on; onset; attack.
(typography) A unit of measurement equal to the height of the type in use.
(neologism) them (singular).
* {{quote-book
, date = 1986-04-01
, title = The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting with the AMS-TeX macro package
, first = Michael
, last = Spivak
, location = Providence
, publisher = American Mathematical Society
, page = 68
, isbn = 0821829998
, id =
, lccn = 85007506
, url = http://books.google.com/books?id=kXzxAAAAMAAJ&q=up+to+Em+to+indicate+Eir
, passage = If the author uses such notation, it should be up to Em to indicate Eir intentions clearly, but there's no harm checking first.
}}
* {{quote-book
, year = 1997
, title = Doom Patrols : A Theoretical Fiction About Postmodernism
, first = Steven
, last = Shaviro
, publisher = Serpent's Tail
, location = London
, isbn = 9781852424305
, lccn = 9668813
, page = 138
, passage = I may become quite intimate with someone, spend hours with em every night, and yet not have the slightest idea what eir voice sounds like, or what eir RL body looks, feels, and smells like.
}}
* {{quote-book
, year = 2000
, chapter = Ethics, Plugged and Unplugged: The Pegagogy of Disorderly Conduct
, first = Jane
, last = Love
, title = Taking flight with OWLs: Examining Electronic Writing Center Work
, editors = Inman, James A.; Sewell, Donna N.
, publisher = Taylor & Francis
, isbn = 0805831711
, id =
, page = 193
, passage = E invites em to consider how ey represent emselves(SIC), and in so doing, e focuses eir attention on the ethics that make human relations possible.
, url = http://books.google.com/books?id=aFKqSzIxCLkC&pg=PA193
}}
* {{quote-web
, date = 2011-03-15
, title = 89: New Friend
, blog = Riot Nrrd
, first = RJ
, last = Edwards
, url = http://www.riotnrrdcomics.com/2011/03/89-new-friend/
, accessdate = 2012-10-06
, passage = And ultimately: I think my readers are mature enough that knowing eir assigned gender is not going to give them an “excuse” to misgender em .
}}
(Scotland, Ireland) a form of hesitant speech, or an expression of uncertainty; um; umm; erm
As a verb insult
is (obsolete|intransitive) to behave in an obnoxious and superior manner (over, against).As a noun insult
is an action or form of speech deliberately intended to be rude.As a preposition em is
around, round.As an adverb em is
around, about.insult
English
Verb
(en verb)- thou hast lost all, poor thou art, dejected, in pain of body, grief of mind, thine enemies insult over thee, thou art as bad as Job […].
- (Shakespeare)
Synonyms
* (to offend) abuse, affront, offend, slight * See alsoAntonyms
*complimentNoun
(en noun)- the ruthless sneer that insult adds to grief
- To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!
- The way the orchestra performed tonight was an insult to my ears.
- Within the complex genome of most organisms there are alternative multiple pathways of proteins which can help the individual cell survive a variety of insults , for example radiation, toxic chemicals, heat, excessive or reduced oxygen.
- (Dryden)
Synonyms
* (deliberatedly intended to be rude) abuse (uncountable), affront, offence (UK)/offense (US), pejorative, slam, slight, slur * (thing causing offence by being of unacceptable quality) disgrace, outrage * See alsoAntonyms
*complimentAnagrams
* * English heteronymsem
English
Etymology 1
The typographic em is named after the metal type for the capital (M) in early printing, whose body was square (the printed letter M is almost never one em in width).Noun
(en noun)- The ems and ens at the beginnings and ends.
Synonyms
* (typography) quad, em quad * (typography) mutton, mutDerived terms
* emcee * em dashSee also
*Etymology 2
(Spivak pronouns) Coined by Christine M. Elverson by removing the "th" from (them), perhaps influenced by (term, 'em).Pronoun
Synonyms
* him or her, * (singular) them * (neologism) hirDerived terms
* (neologism) emselfSee also
* other gender-neutral pronounsEtymology 3
Interjection
(en interjection)- She was going to, em ... the salon, I think.