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gum up

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gum up

verb gums up · gumming up · gummed up

  1. intransitive To become gooey or gummy. Some types of lubricating grease gum up as they age.
  2. transitive To cause to be gooey or gummy, especially with the effect of obstructing the operation of some mechanism or process. Aging grease had gummed up the record changer.
  3. broadly, idiomatic, transitive To make non-functional; to interfere with or put into a state of disorder; to ruin. He had the car pushed to a near-by stable, amidst the mixed emotions of the little crowd, and next day he had it hauled home. / "You were right," he said, when I met him out again in it, a week later. "It was gummed up, so to speak; but it's working like a charm to-day.[…]"

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verb To cause to be gooey or gummy, especially with the effect of obstructing the operation of some mechanism or process

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MLA

"gum up." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/gum%20up. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

gum up. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/gum%20up

Chicago

"gum up." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/gum%20up.

BibTeX
@misc{gum_up_2026,
  title = {gum up},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/gum%20up},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}