gum1
/ɡʌm
/noun
1 [mass noun] A viscous secretion of some trees and shrubs that hardens on drying but is soluble in water, and from which adhesives and other products are made. Compare with resin.The raw silk fiber actually consists of two filaments called fibroin bound by a soluble silk gum called sericin....
- Indian or Chinese ink is essentially lampblack (carbon ink) which is mixed with gum and resin and hardened by baking.
- I learn that one ice cream ingredient, locust bean gum, was used in ancient Egypt to seal the wrappings on mummies.
1.1Glue that is used for sticking paper or other light materials together.There are over five hundred million balloons in Europe which have been tied together with string and gum to form Europe City, the capital of Europe....
- He also has a piece of adhesive gum with drawing pins sunk in it which, when combined with a thick rubber band, makes a horrifying catapult.
Synonyms
glue, adhesive, fixative, paste, cement, resin, epoxy resin, superglue;
North American mucilage
North American informal stickum
1.2A sticky secretion collecting in the corner of the eye.
2 short for chewing gum or bubblegum.Behind her sat Stacey, one of the most popular cheerleaders of the high school, and she was loudly popping her cotton candy scented gum....
- Lynda walked in, blowing a pink bubble with her gum.
- A bored looking Sales attendant glanced up from her magazine while absentmindedly blowing a bubble with her gum, and gestured around herself.
3A gum tree, especially a eucalyptus. See also sweet gum.Here, unusual and ancient giant ferns are frequent, as are scribbly gums and eucalypts, while in places kauri and satinay pines reach high for the sky....
- The Australian ‘Nilagiris’ owe their name to a vaporous blue haze exuded by the eucalyptus gum.
- Thomas established a piece of paradise by planting many native rimu, gums and pines, which now shelter an extraordinary collection of some of the world's rarest and most unusual plants.
4NZ short for kauri gum.
5 North American term for gumboot.
verb (gums, gumming, gummed) [with object]
1Cover with gum or glue: (as adjective gummed) gummed paper...
- Drawing and painting materials - as well as crayons and felt-tip pens, try colouring pencils, poster paints, coloured paper, sparkly card, glitter glue, gummed shapes, pom-poms and sequins.
- If you use an electric sander, keep the tool moving on the surface to prevent friction from melting the finish and gumming up the paper.
- Keep the sander moving constantly to prevent heat caused by friction from softening the paint and gumming up the paper.
1.1 [with object and adverbial] Fasten with gum or glue: the receipts are gummed into a special book...
- Stamps are slammed on the title page, label pockets gummed to the rear pastedown, dust wrappers discarded, covers vulcanised in plastic - or, in those days, a toffee-brown buckram tough enough to withstand acid.
- To start I went for an enormous rack of ribs, which would easily have made a main course in its own right, slow-cooked so the fat had rendered down to produce that lovely stickiness which gums your teeth together.
Synonyms
stick, glue, paste, cement;
fix, affix, attach, fasten, post
1.2 (gum something up) Clog up a mechanism and prevent it from working properly: open and close the valves to make sure they don’t get gummed up...
- All the work's possible dreams are gummed up to create a world that is glacial, hyperrealistic, and devoid of poetry.
- What if more accountability actually slowed it down, gummed it up.
- The impact would be nearly imperceptible at first, but it'd be there, and significant enough to gum things up.
Synonyms
clog (up), choke (up), stop up, dam up, plug, congest, jam, obstruct, occlude, close
informal bung up, gunge up
obstruct, impede, hinder, interfere with, bring to a halt
Origin
Middle English: from Old French gomme, based on Latin gummi, from Greek kommi, from Egyptian kemai.
In the sense ‘a sticky secretion produced by some trees and shrubs’, gum can be traced all the way back to an ancient Egyptian word kemai. Among its more recent meanings it has been applied to a type of sweet pastille (as in ‘fruit gum’) since the early 19th century, and to chewing gum from the mid 19th century in the US. The other type of gum, inside your mouth, comes from an Old English word meaning ‘the inside of the mouth or throat’. Gumshoe is an American term for a detective. Dating from the early 20th century, it relates to rubber-soled shoes, called gumshoes or sneakers, suitable for doing something stealthily.
Rhymes
gum2
/ɡʌm/noun
The firm area of flesh around the roots of the teeth in the upper or lower jaw: a tooth broken off just above the gum toothpastes made to keep your gums healthy [as modifier]: gum disease...
- Oral cancer encompasses cancers of the mouth, throat, cheek, gums, lips and tongue.
- One of the largest-ever studies following the teeth and gums of healthy adults has just been reported from Brisbane.
- Go to the dentist before you get pregnant to be sure your teeth and gums are healthy.
verb (gums, gumming, gummed) [with object]
Chew (something) with toothless gums: the two-year-old gummed his mother’s plastic-coated ration card...
- They made the leathery meal soft enough to swallow by alternately sucking on and gumming it.
- My 10-month-old son is still more interested in gumming the keyboard than in exploring educational possibilities on the Web, but I look forward to the day when I can help him connect with his world by connecting to the Internet.
- And I could only stare, my mouth hung open dumbly like a cow gumming its cud.
Origin
Old English gōma 'inside of the mouth or throat', of Germanic origin; related to German Gaumen 'roof of the mouth'.
gum3
/ɡʌm/noun (in phrase by gum!) chiefly Northern English
An exclamation used for emphasis: if he wants it done by Friday, by gum, he’d better get cracking!...
- But by gum, he was going to shout at them a lot and ladle on the tough love to get them there.
- Apparently the fame went right to this fella's noggin, by gum, as his hollerin' and harp-playin' have now become a permanent fixture at Barfly's bluegrass nights as well.
- Cutting back on emissions (by agreeing to the Kyoto Protocols), the report contended, would put a damper on the economic wealth that will save us from hurricanes that might take lots of lives in poorer countries but not here, by gum.
Origin
Early 19th century: euphemistic alteration of God.
GUM4
abbreviation
Genito-urinary medicine.