- 1嗯哼（咳一聲引起注意）
Ahem is the sound of a small cough that is not really about a sore throat. You make it to get someone’s attention (“excuse me, I’m here”), to step into a conversation, or when you are about to say something a bit . Writers put Ahem in dialogue to show that cough. Though actually, you do not read the letters A-H-E-M out loud like a normal word; you make the cough. People also use it with a look, to point at a mistake without naming the mistake — kind, or a little teasing, depending on the face that goes with it.
From the word’s history
Onomatopoeic.
模仿清喉嚨聲音的擬聲詞。
組成A sound that copies a small cough. It is not built from smaller words.
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
ahemintj/əˈhɛm/
- 1
The sound of a quiet cough or of clearing one's throat.
- 2
Demanding attention.
- Ahem! Could we please get started?
- Enter Nobody, and the Clowne. / Nobody. Ahem boy, Nobody is ſound yet for all his troubles.
- 3
Expresses disapproval or annoyance.
- Ahem! In case you didn't notice, I did my share of the work, too.
- 4
Indicates the speaker does not wish to be perceived as rude, often intimating an impolite meaning to a third party that the speaker is not addressing.
- I really (ahem!) liked the chocolate broccoli surprise.
- 5
Indicates the speaker does not wish to be perceived as rude, often intimating an impolite meaning to a third party that the speaker is not addressing.
- The tone of Fat is casual and ahem, digestible, while also providing a succinct and significant overview of fatness and some of the issues most relevant to the burgeoning field of fat studies.
ahemverb/əˈhɛm/
- 1
To cough or clear one's throat so as to draw attention.
- He wouldn't have been suspected of crying for the world, but he coughed and ahemmed, and finally turned away without speaking.
- A full inspiration, preparatory to hawking, ahemming, or premeditated careful coughing, would excite an explosion of an unusually violent and persistent cough, hurrying the breath out of the poor victims.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。