gaum

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gaum

(gôm)

tr.v. gaumed, gaum·ing, gaums Upper Southern US

To smudge or smear.

[Perhaps alteration of obsolete gome, grease, variant of coom, soot, mixture of dirt and axle grease, variant of culm.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

gaum

(ɡɔːm)

the act of paying attention or understanding

1. (intr) to stare in a vacant manner

2. (tr) to handle (a person or object) in a reckless or improper manner

3. (tr) to smear (a sticky substance) on an object

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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When I takes de chillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to gaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't nobody notice dey's changed.

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I am satisfied it was named by the Diggers--those degraded savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the human grease and ashes of bones with tar, and "gaum" it thick all over their heads and foreheads and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills and call it mourning.