The noun is from dialectal (Northern) English, from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaum, gaumr (“heed, attention”), from Proto-Germanic *gaumō (“attention”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰowe- (“to heed, pay attention”). The verb is from Middle English *gomen, from the noun. Compare native Middle English yemen, from Old English ġīeman (“to care for, heed”), and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌿𐌼𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gaumjan, “observe”).
"Take no gaum," he said. "I've not heard her. This is between thee and me, Tommy. I'll use but one hand." 1972, William Mayne, The Incline, →ISBN, page 141:
"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. 1919, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth, The Taming of Nan, page 31:
"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." 1862, C. Clough Robinson, The Dialect of Leeds and its Neighbourhood, Illustrated, page 18:
The noun is from dialectal (Northern) English, from Middle English gome, from Old Norse gaum, gaumr (“heed, attention”), from Proto-Germanic *gaumō (“attention”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰowe- (“to heed, pay attention”). The verb is from Middle English *gomen, from the noun. Compare native Middle English yemen, from Old English ġīeman (“to care for, heed”), and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌿𐌼𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gaumjan, “observe”).
Meanings
(dialectal, obsolete) To understand; comprehend; consider.
"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." 1893, Keighley Snowden, Tales of the Yorkshire Wolds, page 171:
'Nobody gaums where we are now,' I said. 1896, James Keighley Snowden, Web of an Old Weaver, quoted in The English Dialect Dictionary (1900 edition)
Aye sir, we gaum ye. 1870, John Christopher Atkinson, Lost, quoted in The English Dialect Dictionary (1900 edition)
(Appalachia, Midlands, Southern-US, UK, US, dialectal) To smear.
Simply gaum them all over with thick claybank mud and throw them into the fire. The clay will bake hard. 1990, Appalachian Journal, volume 18, page 196:
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 […] 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:
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; […] 1894, Rowland Evans Robinson, Danvis Folks, chapter VI, The Paring-Bee, page 117
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 […] c. 1908, Mark Twain, “Little Bessie”, in Mark Twain's Fables of Man, published 1972:
Unknown. Possibly related to gaum (“smear”, verb).
Meanings
(qualifier:Appalachia and other dialects, rare, uncountable) Grime.
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!' 1927, Robert Lindsay Mason, The lure of the Great Smokies, page 150
They thrust their wedge-shaped faces into the light, then, one by one, tried the air with their delicate paper wings. The air bore them up; they circled lazily over the heads of men, they lit on hands and faces and in the gaum of wounds, they died underfoot. 2000, Howard Bahr, The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War, →ISBN, page 106:
"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'." 1913, William Gerard Chapman, “Wine of the Orchard”, in Outing: Sport, Adventure, Travel Fiction, volume 61, page 210:
"There aint a gaum of grub to be found nowheres. If rain was syrup, we'd all be gorged, but there aint enough sup to make a housefly floop his snoot." 1990, Donald Harington, The Cockroaches of Stay More, →ISBN, page 191:
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," […] 1978, Editorials on File, volume 9, number 2, page 1392:
When he had let what he deemed was a sufficiency of blood out of the incised vein, he called to Elvira to bring a spoon of "sut" from off the back of the fireplace and a "gaum" of spiderwebs from somewhere or other. 1939, Esquire, volume 12, numbers 1-3, page 54:
Probably a variant of gom (an Irish English slang term for a foolish person), but possibly related to or influenced by gorming, gawming (“clumsy, stupid”).
Meanings
(colloquial, dialectal, rare) A useless person.
He's a scrawny gaum of a lad named Tony Regan, the tailor's eldest son. 1946, Liam O'Flaherty, Land, →ISBN:
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. 1947, James Reynolds, A world of horses: A conversation piece, page 229:
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. 1956, Sean O'Casey, I knock at the door. Pictures in the hallway. [etc], page 133:
Some gaumed up their whole lives by a-hasteing in this or that thing, taking out their impatience on this or the other body. 2011, Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom, →ISBN, page 206:
"She'll get plum bereft 'n worried, even git the all'overs, if n the place's all gaumed up." 2005, Charles Ray, The Tarheel Connection: An Environmental Romance, →ISBN, page 93: