Dictionary

gom en · NOUN · etymology 1

Etymology

Borrowed from Irish gám (“booby, dolt”).

Meanings

1. (Ireland) A foolish person.
   • “ Ye don’t how how to dhrive a mothor car ! ” shouted Miles, losing his temper completely. “ What a gom ye are ! ” 1917, Mary Brigid Pearse, The Murphys of Ballystack, Dublin: M.H. Gill, page 139:
   • "Yeah! She's a right gom! Sister Eleanor probably got her an old-age pensioner to keep her company for the Christmas!" 2014, Martha Long, Ma, I'm Gettin Meself a New Mammy, →ISBN:
   • Fluther: ... You must think Fluther's a right gom. 1926, Seán O'Casey, The Plough and the Stars, act II, page 137:
   • And that's the why I made up my mind to go out to Willie Hill's. To stand my ground in front of that little minx. Because I felt, to tell the God's truth, that little Lorna Lovegrove, out in Willie Hill's, was making a right gom out of me. 2007, John Maher, The Luck Penny, page 145:
   • He had a sinking feeling that he'd made a right gom of himself, hanging onto her until the last before she departed […] 2013, Outrageous Pride, →ISBN:

Forms

gom en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

Variant of gum.

Meanings

1. (Appalachia, alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of gum.
   alt of gum
   • ev'y toof in his jaws gwine come bustin' thu his goms widout nair' a ache er a pain ter let him know dey's dar. 1911, “Why moles have hands”, in Marshall Pinckney Wilder, editor, The Wit and Humor of America, page 206:

Forms

gom en · INTJ · etymology 3

Etymology

Minced oath.

Meanings

1. (euphemistic, obsolete) God!
   • "l'll drink as much cider as you 'plase, but by gom, sir, you munna come here to bork the trees over again." 1861, The Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer, volumes 9-10, page 36:
   • Robert took courage : "Eh, by gom, no. It wasn't hereabouts." 1908, Edmund Mackenzie Sneyd-Kynnersley, H. M. I.: Some Passages in the Life of One of H. M. Inspectors of Schools, page 224:
   • There's a Lad, too, from York— but tho' he's a strange elf, / By gom! I respect him as much as myself, 1804, an entry in the Theatrical Journal of The European Magazine: And London Review, volume 45, page 373
   • O dang it, Roger, did 'e ever see sich a sight afore? My gom! what a glorious lumination like! My goles! what a mort of gentry-folk! 1829, “The Humours of Vauxhall”, in The Universal Songster, Or Museum of Mirth, volume 2, page 164: