different between gorm vs goam

English

Etymology 1

A variant of gaum (from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaumr; compare Gothic ???????????????????????????? (gaumjan, “observe”)), with the ‘r’ being a vowel-lengthening device common in non-rhotic dialects of English. See gaum for more.

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.

   • 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”)

Etymology 2

A variant of gaum (itself likely a variant of gum), with the ‘r’ being a vowel-lengthening device common in non-rhotic dialects of English.

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 using 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."

Etymology 3

From gormandize/gormandise.

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."

Etymology 4

Supposed by some to be related to gormless and/or gorming, and by others to be related to gorm (“smear”) (itself probably related to gum (“make sticky; impair the functioning of”)).

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 […]

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)."

Anagrams

• grom

Cornish

Etymology

From Proto-Brythonic *gurm, from Proto-Celtic *gurmos, cognate with Welsh gwrm (“brown, dark”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??rm/

Adjective

gorm

1. dark brown

Related terms

• gell (“light brown”)

Mutation

See also

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish gorm (“blue”), from Proto-Celtic *gurmos. Cognate with Welsh gwrm (“dusky”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??????m?/

Adjective

gorm (genitive singular masculine goirm, genitive singular feminine goirme, plural gorma, comparative goirme)

1. blue
2. (of people, skin) black
3. (heraldry) azure

Declension

Obsolete spellings

Derived terms

Mutation

See also

References

• MacBain, Alexander; Mackay, Eneas (1911) , “gorm”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, Stirling, ?ISBN

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish gorm (“blue”), from Proto-Celtic *gurmos. Same root as Welsh gwrm (“dusky”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?r??m/

Adjective

gorm (comparative guirme)

1. blue
2. Of blue-green to verdant colour, when applied to plants.

Derived terms

Related terms

• gar

Mutation

See also

References

• MacBain, Alexander; Mackay, Eneas (1911) , “gorm”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, Stirling, ?ISBN

English

Etymology

Variant of gorm/gaum, which see for more.

Verb

goam (third-person singular simple present goams, present participle goaming, simple past and past participle goamed)

1. (rare) To see, to recognize, to take notice of.
   • 1866, The United Presbyterian magazine, page 359:

     One of Mr Scott's elders, who came from the west, used to meet Mrs Scott on her way to Jedburgh, when he never goamed her; but when he met her returning in the afternoon he always lifted his hat, and made obeisance.

   • 1884, Charles Stuart, David Blythe: The Gipsy King : a Character Sketch, page 131:

     He never goamed the lassie afterwards, and, in his despair, he began to drink, and drank heavily. He knew his rival by sight, and, knowing the road he would take to reach his home, Scott waylaid and beat him to death on Greenlaw Muir.

   • 1897, Peter Hay Hunter, John Armiger's Revenge, page 21:

     "He never goam'd me," the aggrieved countryman would say with much bitterness.

Related terms

• gorm (“gape, gawk”)
• gaum (“understand; comprehend; consider”)

Anagrams

• AMOG, GOMA, Goma, gamo-, ogam

Scots

Etymology

From the same Middle English word as gaum and gorm (and goam), which see for more.

Verb

goam (third-person singular present goams, present participle goamin, past goamt, past participle goamt)

1. To see; to pay attention to.
   • 1836, John Mackay Wilson, Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland:

     The puir creature paid the most marked attention to the young man, scarcely goaming me; but, for a' that, I could see plainly aneugh that she preferred me in her heart.