gorm

Alternative forms

• gawm (UK dialects)

Verb

gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)

1. (Britain and US, dialects) To gawk; to stare or gape.
   • 1922, Elinor Mordaunt, Laura Creichton, page 110:

     Passing through St. George's Square, Lupus Street, Chichester Street, he scarcely saw a soul; then, quite suddenly, he struck a dense crowd, kept back by the police, standing gorming at a great jagged hole in a high blank wall, a glimpse, the merest glimpse of more broken walls, shattered chimneys.

   • 1901, New Outlook, volume 67, page 408:

     "Tell Sannah to bring some coffee," said the young woman to a diminutive Kaffir boy, who stood gorming at us with round black eyes.

   • 1990, Jean Ure, Play Nimrod for him →ISBN, page 96:

     They would stand in silence, mindlessly gorming at each other, […]

   • 2005, Lynne Truss, The Lynne Truss Treasury: Columns and Three Comic Novels →ISBN:

     In particular, we like to emphasize that, far from wasting our childhoods (not to mention adulthoods) mindlessly gorming at The Virginian and The Avengers, we spent those couch-potato years in rigorous preparation for our chosen career.

Related terms

• goam (“see, recognize, take notice of”)
• gaum (“understand; comprehend; consider”)

Verb

gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)

1. Alternative form of gaum (to smear).
   • 1884, Margaret Elizabeth Majendie, Out of their element, page 70:

     'It is quite ruined.'

     'How did she do it? What a pity!'

     'With paint—assisting in the painting of a garden-gate. She told me the pleasure of "gorming" it on was too irresistible to be resisted; and the poor little new gown in done for.'

   • 1909, Augusta Kortrecht, The Widow Mary, in Good Housekeeping, volume 48, page 182:

     "It was in a little sprinkler bottle, an' I gormed it onto my vittles good an' thick. Lordy, Lordy, an' now I got to die!"

   • For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:gorm.

References

• Bennett Wood Green, Word-book of Virginia Folk-speech (1912), page 202:

  Gorm, v. To smear, as with anything sticky. When a child has smeared its face with something soft and sticky, they say: "Look how you have gormed your face."

Verb

gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)

1. (colloquial, rare) To devour; to wolf down (food).
   • 1885 James Johonnot, Neighbors with Claws and Hoofs, and Their Kin, page 105:

     The bear came up to the berries and stopped. Not accustomed to eat out of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about the fruit "gorming" it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, […]

   • 1920, Outdoor Recreation: The Magazine that Brings the Outdoors In:

     […] an itinerant bruin and with naught on his hands but time and an appetite, [to] wander from ravine to ravine and gorm down this delectable fruit.

   • 1980, Michael G. Karni, Finnish Americana, page 5:

     As Luohi said later, "He gormed it. Nay, he didn't eat it. He gormed it, the pig."

Alternative forms

• gaum

Verb

gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)

1. (dialectal, chiefly Southern US, Appalachia, New England, often with ‘up’) To make a mess of.
   • 1910, English Mechanic and World of Science, volume 91, page 273:

     I find the cheap shilling self-filling pen advertised in these pages excellent value—quite equal to that of fountain-pens I have paid ten times as much for. It is also durable. I am a careless person, and prefer to discard it when I have “gormed” it […]

   • 2008, Christine Blevins, Midwife of the Blue Ridge →ISBN, page 133:

     "Truth is, I've gormed it all up, Alistair. When it comes t' women — nice women anyway — I'm as caw-handed and cork-brained as any pimply boy."

References

• Maine lingo: boiled owls, billdads & wazzats (1975), page 114: "A man who bungles a job has gormed it. Anybody who stumbles over his own feet is gormy."
• Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech (1993, →ISBN: "gorm: [v. to make a mess.] If a house be in disorder it is said to be all gormed or gaumed up (B 368)."

Declension

Obsolete spellings

Derived terms

Derived terms

Related terms

• gar