“gums” is a form of
gum
/ɡʌm/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms gums gumming gummed gom goom gumm
- noun (often in the plural) The flesh around the teeth.
- verb To chew, especially of a toothless person or animal.
- verb (transitive) To deepen and enlarge the spaces between the teeth of (a worn saw), as with a gummer.
- noun (botany, biochemistry, chiefly uncountable) 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. “gum arabic”
- noun (chiefly uncountable) Any viscous or sticky substance resembling the true gum. “gum benzoin”
- noun (chiefly uncountable) Chewing gum.
- noun (countable) A single piece of chewing gum. “Do you have a gum to spare?”
- noun (South Africa, often in the plural) A gummi candy.
- noun (US, dialect, Southern US) A hive made of a section of a hollow gum tree; hence, any roughly made hive.
- noun (US, dialect, Southern US) A vessel or bin made from a hollow log.
- noun (US, dialect) A rubber overshoe.
- verb (sometimes with up) To apply an adhesive or gum to; to make sticky by applying a sticky substance to.
- verb To stiffen with glue or gum.
- verb (sometimes with together) To inelegantly attach into a sequence.
- verb (colloquial, with up) To impair the functioning of a thing or process. “That cheap oil will gum up the engine valves.”
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
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”).
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.
From Middle English gomme, gumme, borrowed from Anglo-Norman gome, from Late Latin gumma, from Latin cummi, gummi, from Ancient Greek κόμμι (kómmi), from Egyptian qmy (“anointing oil”), qmyt (“acanthus resin, gum”). Cognate with Spanish goma (“rubber”). Doublet of gumma.
* As an English and German surname, variant of Gumm.
* As a north/Low German surname, from Old Saxon gumo (“man”).
* As a Chinese surname, Romanized from 甘 (gān) (Gan).
Webster’s 1913
- noun The dense tissues which invest the teeth, and cover the adjacent parts of the jaws. Gum rash (Med.), strophulus in a teething child; red gum. -- Gum stick, a smooth hard substance for children to bite upon while teething.
- verb To deepen and enlarge the spaces between the teeth of (a worn saw). See Gummer.
- noun A vegetable secretion of many trees or plants that hardens when it exudes, but is soluble in water; as, gum arabic; gum tragacanth; the gum of the cherry tree. Also, with less propriety, exudations that are not soluble in water; as, gum copal and gum sandarac, which are really resins.
- noun See Gum tree, below.
Etymology [OE. gomme, gumme, F. gomme, L. gummi and commis, fr. Gr. kam; cf. It. gomma.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gum”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details