gum
Meanings
- The flesh around the teeth.
- To chew, especially of a toothless person or animal.
- To deepen and enlarge the spaces between the teeth of (a worn saw), as with a gummer.
- A viscous water-soluble carbohydrate exudate of certain plants that hardens when it becomes dry, or such a substance as a component of a plant exudate.
- Any viscous or sticky substance resembling the true gum.
- Chewing gum.
- A single piece of chewing gum.
- A gummi candy.
- A hive made of a section of a hollow gum tree; hence, any roughly made hive.
- A vessel or bin made from a hollow log.
- A rubber overshoe.
- A gum tree, any of various types of trees or an individual thereof.
- To apply an adhesive or gum to; to make sticky by applying a sticky substance to.
- To stiffen with glue or gum.
- To inelegantly attach into a sequence.
- To impair the functioning of a thing or process.
- Initialism of genitourinary medicine.
- Initialism of GUM (department store).
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English gom, gome, gomme, goome, gum, gume, gumme, from Old English gōma (“palate”), from Proto-West Germanic *gōmō, from Proto-Germanic *gaumô, *gōmô (“palate”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂- (“to gape, yawn”). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian gaumo (“palate”), German Gaum, Gaumen (“palate”), Luxembourgish Gomm, Gumm (“palate”), Yiddish גומען (gumen, “palate”), Danish gumme (“gums”), Icelandic gómur (“gum”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gom (“palate”); also Latin hio (“to gape, yawn”), Ancient Greek χάσκω (kháskō, “to gape, yawn”), Lithuanian gomurỹs (“palate”), Bulgarian зе́я (zéja, “to gape”), Czech zát, zet (“to gape”), Polish ziać (“to pant”), Russian зия́ть (zijátʹ, “to gape, yawn”), Serbo-Croatian зи́јати, zíjati (“to gape, yawn”), Ukrainian зя́яти (zjájaty, “to gape”), Tocharian A koy- (“mouth”), Tocharian B koyn (“mouth”). More at yawn.