hmmhmm.

adv.  no.

<Can’t we stay?  —Hmmhmm, I say, and shake my head.  —Leslie Wells, The Curing Season.>

adv.  yes, as in New Directions for Equity in Mathematics Education by Walter G. Secada.


n.  a thoughtful hum.

<You said, oh, this thing about hmmhmm, cataract surgery.  —Stephanie Brown, Allegory of the Supermarket.>

HmmHmm.

n.  an expression of surprise.

<The Countess noticed that the tea things were disappearing.  “HmmHmm, Madame Romaine!  It seems we are running out of tea things.”  —Deborah Nourse Lattimore, The Lady with the Ship on Her Head.>

hmmhmm.

n.  the sound of one thinking to oneself, as in the novel Schooling by Heather McGowan.

HMMHMMHMMHMM.

n.  the sound of clearing one’s throat.

<Father ... was also silent—but more noisily so.  He kept clearing his throat, as if he was getting ready to say something.  It never got said.  What got said instead was GRMMMMPH and HMMHMMHMMHMM.  —Jules Feiffer, The Man in the Ceiling.>

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