• IPA: /ɡɔːm/

The noun is from dialectal (Northern) English, from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaum, gaumr ("heed, attention"), from Proto-Germanic *gaumō, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰowe-.

gaum (uncountable)

1. (UK, dialectal, rare) Heed; attention.
   • 1862, C. Clough Robinson, The Dialect of Leeds and its Neighbourhood, Illustrated, page 18:

     "S'cat! s'cat! — set that cat off that barns knee — it al puzzum it!"
     "Ah've tel'd 'em awal abart that tu monny a hunderd times, bud thuh tak no moar gaum o' muh then a stoop."

   • 1919, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, The Taming of Nan, page 31:

     "Good-night, Uncle Nat," he called. Uncle Nat walked on in grim silence, never turning his head, for quite half a dozen paces. Then he came back to the gate to which Adam had also returned. "Tak' no gaum o' my gruntlin', Addy," asked Uncle.

gaum (gaums, present participle gauming; simple past and past participle gaumed)

1. (dialectal, obsolete) To understand; comprehend; consider.
   • 1893, Keighley Snowden, Tales of the Yorkshire Wolds, page 171:

     "We said nowt on 't. Ther' no 'casion to stir up trouble. But we all gaumed 'at when he heerd t' sounds o' them 'at com to lowse us he'd crawled off into t' workin's an' brayed his head agean a shou'der o' quartz."

   • 1896, James Keighley Snowden, Web of an Old Weaver, quoted in The English Dialect Dictionary (1900 edition):

     'Nobody gaums where we are now,' I said.

   • 1870, John Christopher Atkinson, Lost, quoted in The English Dialect Dictionary (1900 edition):

     Aye sir, we gaum ye.

• gorm
• goam

gaum (gaums, present participle gauming; simple past and past participle gaumed)

1. (US and UK, dialects, chiefly, South Midlands, Southern US, Appalachia) To smear.
   • 1894, Rowland Evans Robinson, Danvis Folks, chapter VI, The Paring-Bee, page 117:

     No, bubby, couldn't hev the wax. Gaum him all up so 't mammy 'd hafter nigh abaout skin him tu git him clean ag'in; […]

   • c. 1908, Mark Twain, “Little Bessie”, in Mark Twain's Fables of Man, published 1972:

     Isn't it horrible, mamma! One fly produces fifty-two billions of descendants in 60 days in June and July, and they go and crawl over sick people and wade through pus, and sputa, and foul matter exuding from sores, and gaum themselves with every kind of disease-germ, then they go to everybody's dinner-table and wipe themselves off on the butter […]

   • 1930, Marietta Minnigerode Andrews, Memoirs of a Poor Relation: Being the Story of a Post-war Southern Girl and Her Battle with Destiny, page 293:

     Butter became in my eyes a gauge of character and gentility, almost of integrity. I watched these ravenous wretches "gaum" their batter-cakes with it, help themselves to more than they really wanted, leaving great golden chunks of it half melted and wholly useless, mixed as it was with gravy […]

   • 1990, Appalachian Journal, volume 18, page 196:

     Simply gaum them all over with thick claybank mud and throw them into the fire. The clay will bake hard.

gaum (uncountable)

1. (Appalachia and other dialects, rare) Grime.
   • 1913, William Gerard Chapman, “Wine of the Orchard”, in Outing: Sport, Adventure, Travel Fiction, volume 61, page 210:

     "douse your head under the pump and wash some of the gaum off your hands and we'll see what your Aunt Debbie can do for that empty feelin'."

   • 1927, Robert Lindsay Mason, The lure of the Great Smokies, page 150:

     Said 'Black Bill' Walker, of Walker's Valley, in speaking of the forge: 'I never heerd sech a rackity-rack! Ye'd think the heavens was fallin' down! Them fellers aworkin' thar in the sweat an' gaum reminded me more of the gate to the bad place!'

gaum (plural gaums)

1. (dialectal, rare) A bit, a small amount.
   • 1978, Editorials on File, volume 9, number 2, page 1392:

     The Rockwellian palette was what Arkansans would call a "gaum" of sentiment— sentimentality, the cynical would say. His paintings were what these same cynics would probably call "representational," […]

Probably a variant of gom (an Irish English slang term for a foolish person), but possibly related to or influenced by gorming, gawming.

gaum (plural gaums)

1. (rare, dialectal or colloquial) A useless person.
   • 1947, James Reynolds, A world of horses: A conversation piece, page 229:

     I saw standing up out of the grass a murderous length of sharp steel. Some gaum of a farm boy had abandoned this scythe while cutting bundles of sourgrass for cattle-breeding.

   • 1956, Sean O'Casey, I knock at the door. Pictures in the hallway. [etc], page 133:

     I'm no gaum. I'll work th' delivery in such a wise way that neither of the boyos'll fall into the suspicion they had lost as much as a burnt-out match.

Variant of gorm ("to make a mess of"), which see for more.

gaum (gaums, present participle gauming; simple past and past participle gaumed)

1. Alternative form of gorm to make a mess of.

From Hindi.

gaum (plural gaums)

1. (India, archaic) A village.