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, standinggorming at a great jagged hole in a high blank wall, a glimpse, the merest glimpse of more broken walls, shattered chimneys.
1901,New Outlook, volume67, page408:
"Tell Sannah to bring some coffee," said the young woman to a diminutive Kaffir boy, who stoodgorming at us with round black eyes.
They would stand in silence, mindlesslygorming at each other,[…]
2005, Lynne Truss,The Lynne Truss Treasury: Columns and Three Comic Novels,→ISBN:
In particular, we like to emphasize that, far from wasting our childhoods (not to mention adulthoods) mindlesslygorming atThe Virginian andThe Avengers, we spent those couch-potato years in rigorous preparation for our chosen career.
1884, Margaret Elizabeth Majendie,Out of their element, page70:
'It is quite ruined.' 'How did she do it? What a pity!' 'With paint—assisting in the painting of a garden-gate. She told me the pleasure of "gorming" it on was too irresistible to be resisted; and the poor little new gown in done for.'
1909, Augusta Kortrecht, “The Widow Mary”, inGood Housekeeping, volume48, page182:
"It was in a little sprinkler bottle, an' Igormed it onto my vittles good an' thick. Lordy, Lordy, an' now I got to die!"
Bennett Wood Green,Word-book of Virginia Folk-speech (1912), page 202:
Gorm, v. To smear, as with anything sticky. When a child has smeared its face with something soft and sticky, they say: "Look how you have gormed your face."
1885, James Johonnot,Neighbors with Claws and Hoofs, and Their Kin, page105:
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,[…]
1920,Outdoor Recreation: The Magazine that Brings the Outdoors In:
[…] an itinerant bruin and with naught on his hands but time and an appetite, [to] wander from ravine to ravine andgorm down this delectable fruit.
1980, Michael G. Karni,Finnish Americana, page 5:
As Luohi said later, "Hegormed it. Nay, he didn't eat it. Hegormed it, the pig."
Supposed by some to be related togormless and/orgorming, and by others to be related togorm(“smear”) (itself probably related togum(“make sticky; impair the functioning of”)).[1]
1910,English Mechanic and World of Science, volume91, page273:
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[…]
2008, Christine Blevins,Midwife of the Blue Ridge,→ISBN, page133:
"Truth is, I'vegormed it all up, Alistair. When it comes t' women — nice women anyway — I'm as caw-handed and cork-brained as any pimply boy."
Maine lingo: boiled owls, billdads & wazzats (1975), page 114: "A man who bungles a job hasgormed it. Anybody who stumbles over his own feet is gormy."
Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech (1993,→ISBN: "gorm: [v. to make a mess.] If a house be in disorder it is said to be all gormed or gaumed up (B 368)."
^Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech (1993,→ISBN
