Word.ws English Dictionary

gum up the works

gum up the works verb: synonym of throw a spanner in the works.

Verb

gum up the works (third-person singular simple present gums up the works, present participle gumming up the works, simple past and past participle gummed up the works)

  1. (informal) Synonym of throw a spanner in the works.

Synonyms of gum up the works

Forms of gum up the works

third-person singular presentgums up the works
present participlegumming up the works
past participlegummed up the works
pastgummed up the works

Origin of gum up the works

From gum up + the works.

Questions about gum up the works

What does gum up the works mean?
Gum up the works means synonym of throw a spanner in the works.
What part of speech is gum up the works?
Gum up the works is a verb.
What is the past tense of gum up the works?
The past tense of gum up the works is gummed up the works.

Words near gum up the works in the dictionary

  1. gum succory
  2. gum tree
  3. gum trees
  4. gum turpentine
  5. gum up
  6. gum up the works
  7. gum water
  8. gum-dammar
  9. gum-dammer
  10. gum-digger
  11. gum-diggers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gum up the works (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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Cite this entry: “gum up the works.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gum_up_the_works. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.