gorm
/ɡɔːm/US/ɡoɹm/
gorm verb: to gawk; to stare or gape. Also the alternative form of gaum.
Verb (1)
gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)
- To gawk; to stare or gape.
- 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.1922, Elinor Mordaunt, Laura Creichton, page 110
- "Tell Sannah to bring some coffee," said the young woman to a diminutive Kaffir boy, who stood gorming at us with round black eyes.1901, New Outlook, volume 67, page 408
Verb (2)
gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)
- To devour; to wolf down (food).
- 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, […]1885, James Johonnot, Neighbors with Claws and Hoofs, and Their Kin, page 105
- […] 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.1920, Outdoor Recreation: The Magazine that Brings the Outdoors In
Verb (3)
gorm (third-person singular simple present gorms, present participle gorming, simple past and past participle gormed)
- To make a mess of.
- 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 […]1910, English Mechanic and World of Science, volume 91, page 273
- "Truth is, I've gormed it all up, Alistair. When it comes t' women — nice women anyway — I'm as caw-handed and cork-brained as any pimply boy."2008, Christine Blevins, Midwife of the Blue Ridge, →ISBN, page 133
Also used as
gorm is also the alternative form of gaum.
Forms of gorm
| third-person singular present | gorms |
|---|---|
| present participle | gorming |
| past participle | gormed |
| past | gormed |
| alternative form | gawm |
| alternative form | gaum |
Origin of gorm
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).
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.
From gormandize/gormandise.
Questions about gorm
- What does gorm mean?
- Gorm means to gawk; to stare or gape.
- What part of speech is gorm?
- Gorm is a verb.
- How do you pronounce gorm?
- Gorm is pronounced /ɡɔːm/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of gorm?
- The past tense of gorm is gormed.
Words near gorm in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gorm (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gorm.wav.
Cite this entry: “gorm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gorm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.