gorm
/ɡoɹm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.80 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Alternative form of gaum (“to smear”).
Example Sentences
- "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."
- ""Tell Sannah to bring some coffee," said the young woman to a diminutive Kaffir boy, who stood gorming at us with round black eyes."
- "They would stand in silence, mindlessly gorming at each other, […]"
- "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."
- "'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.'"
- ""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!""
Etymology
A variant of gaum, from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaumr, from Proto-Germanic *gaumō; compare Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌿𐌼𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gaumjan, “observe”), and see gaum for more. The -r- was not originally pronounced but was a device used by non-rhotic dialects of English to indicate vowel length or quality (compare Burma, Myanmar, and juggernaut).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɡoɹm/
- British English: /ɡɔːm/
Usage
- British usage
- American usage
- Colloquial