Gormy
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Awkward, clumsy, klutzy, ungainly. British, New-England, Northern-England, US, not-comparable
"And not always with finesse — the Lombard clanked and churned, and a man who is like a regular Lombard may be a bit gormy and sometimes apply brute strength when he might do the work easier if he'd stop and think a little."
- 2 Alternative spelling of gaumy (“sticky, smeared with something sticky; grimy”). British, Southern-US, US, alt-of, alternative, not-comparable
"The first thing you have got to do is to wash them gormy 'ands [...]"
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"And not always with finesse — the Lombard clanked and churned, and a man who is like a regular Lombard may be a bit gormy and sometimes apply brute strength when he might do the work easier if he'd stop and think a little."
Etymology
Either: * from gorm (“fool; one who is undiscerning”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’); or * a variant of gaumy (“awkward”), from gaum (“to stare idly or vacantly; to gape, gaze; to be awkward or stupid; a lout; a gaping, idle fellow”) + -y.
From gorm, gaum (“to smear; grime (noun)”) + -y.
More for "gormy"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.