In linguistics and related fields, an emic unit is a type of abstract object.
[1] Kinds of emic units are generally denoted by terms with the suffix -eme, such as phoneme, grapheme, and morpheme.
This means that a given emic unit is considered to be a single underlying object that may have a number of different observable "surface" representations.
The word phoneme comes from the Greek: φώνημα, phōnēma, meaning "that which is sounded", from the verb φωνέω (phōneō, 'sound'), which comes in turn from the noun φωνή (phōnē, 'sound').
[a] It is by analogy with phoneme that other emic units, such as the morpheme and the grapheme, were named using the -eme suffix.