Dictionary

hem and haw en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

hem + and + haw

Meanings

1. (US, idiomatic) To discuss, deliberate, or contemplate rather than taking action or making up one's mind.
   • If you hem and haw long enough, someone else will do it first.
2. To mumble and procrastinate in one's speech, especially with a reply to a hard question or with voicing a decision on a topical matter; to evade a question, giving vague answers; to equivocate or temporize.
   • [Pogo:] How can you provide [someone] with scripts what tells him what to say all day long? […] / [Howland Owl:] It's a boon to humanity … How many dolts do you know who hems an' haws their way thru life? – I gives 'em talk. 1959 July 15, Walt Kelly, Pogo (comic strip), →ISBN, page 58:
   • The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. 'We make it a rule,' he explained, 'to give no information concerning our clients.' 'But in this case,' I urged, 'it is the client who requests you to give the information concerning himself.' Again he hemmed and hawed. 1903, The People of the Abyss, by Jack London, Chapter 1
   • These New Yawk publishers hem and haw and say like well we’d LOVE to publish yer great friends but would it sell and I’m overloaded and this and that — everything but that they really don’t want to publish the writing; […] 1959 February 5, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Lawrence Ferlinghetti in San Francisco to Allen Ginsberg in New York”, in Bill Morgan, editor, I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997, San Francisco, Calif.: City Lights Books, published 2015, →ISBN, page 88:

Forms

Relateds

beat around the bush · ahem · pussyfoot · stall for time · clear one's throat

Synonyms

hacker

Translations (9)

cs nemoci se vymáčknout (to mumble and procrastinate in speech) · ru мямлить (to mumble and procrastinate in speech) · fi soutaa ja huovata (to contemplate rather than taking action) · fi jahkailla (to contemplate rather than taking action) · pl wahać się (to contemplate rather than taking action) · cs váhat (to contemplate rather than taking action) · pl szukać słów (to mumble and procrastinate in speech) · ru колебаться (to contemplate rather than taking action) · de zögern und zaudern (to contemplate rather than taking action)