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Gam vs Gawm - What's the difference?

gam | gawm |

As nouns the difference between gam and gawm

is that gam is a person's leg, especially an attractive woman's leg while gawm is an alternative spelling of lang=en foolish person.

As verbs the difference between gam and gawm

is that gam is to make a social visit on another ship at sea while gawm is alternative form of lang=en make sticky, or impair the function of.

gam

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (slang) A person's leg, especially an attractive woman's leg.
  • * 2010 , Home Swell Home: Designing Your Dream Pad (ISBN 0743446356), page 19:
  • Make the salesclerk blush by flashing some gam and asking him to mix a bucket in your flesh tone.
  • * 2012 September 10, (Ariel Levy), "The Space In Between", in The New Yorker :
  • The women's-liberation movement of the late sixties and the seventies – the so-called second wave of feminism – introduced Americans to the notion that their mothers and sisters and daughters ought not to be "objectified": that there was something wrong with reducing female people to boobs, gams , and beaver.

    References

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Collective noun used to refer to) a group of whales, or rarely also of porpoises; a pod.
  • * 1862 , Henry Theodore Cheever, The Whalemen's Adventures in the Southern Ocean , Darton & Hodge, page 116:
  • Upon getting into a "gam " of whales, this boat, together with that of one of the mates, pulled for a single whale that was seen at a distance from the others, and succeeded in getting square up to their victim unperceived.
  • * 1985 , Dennis Kyte, To the Heart of a Bear: The Last Elegant Bear (ISBN 067154781X):
  • Breakfast was interrupted as a gam of porpoises surrounded the Argyle , swaying in the foam and singing in gurgles and beeps.
  • * 2010 , Jack White, Mastery of Self Promotion (ISBN 0557339510), page 119:
  • Christmas day in 1998, we lived on the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Grove, California and watched a gam of whales breaching in the deep ultramarine water.
  • * (seemoreCites)
  • (by extension) A social gathering of whalers (whaling ships).
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale , Harper and Brothers, chapter 53:
  • But what is a Gam'? You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it. ' Gam . NOUN—A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats’ crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.
  • * 1916 , Harry B. Turner, Nantucket's Early Telegraph Service'', in the ''Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association , page 50:
  • There is still that yearning for news from Nantucket that there was when the whale-ships stopped for a gam out in the far-distant Pacific Ocean
  • * 1997 , Gillies Ross, ?Margaret Penny, This Distant and Unsurveyed Country (ISBN 0773516743), page 14:
  • If time was available, whaling prospects poor, and the weather gentle, a gam might last all day and include tea and dinner.
  • * 2007 , Tom Chaffin, Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah (ISBN 0374707006), page 230:
  • Twice each year, the Russian Navy sent out such ships to provision Russian whalers in the Sea of Okhotsk. In sailing toward the supposed Russian ship, the Abigail ’s captain, Ebenezer Nye, was hoping for a gam with the ship's officers

    Verb

  • (nautical) To make a social visit on another ship at sea.
  • * 2008 , Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (ISBN 0393066665), page 436:
  • Although most whalemen looked forward to gamming and enjoyed these ocean-borne gatherings, there were at least a few whalemen who either grew weary of them, or just weary of gamming so often with the same ships over and over.
  • * 2011 , Paul Schneider, The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod (ISBN 0805067345), page 255:
  • This was early in the summer of 1820, after nearly a year at sea, and they had gammed the whaling ship Aurora, which had on board not only plenty of letters but some newspapers as well.
  • * 2014 , James Revell Carr, Hawaiian Music in Motion (ISBN 0252096525), page 181:
  • In chapter 2 we saw how gamming whalers sang songs that tied them to their homelands while emphasizing the transient, cosmopolitan nature of their work,

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rfv-sense) .
  • * 1992 , Kenneth Darwin, Familia 1992: Ulster Geneological Review: Number 8 (ISBN 0901905569):
  • At some stage some gam of an official decided that Guihen should be translated to the English name Wynne.

    References

    *

    Anagrams

    * * * ----

    gawm

    English

    Etymology 1

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (foolish person).
  • * 1892 , The Awkward Squads'', in ''Littell's Living Age , volume 195, page 811:
  • "E-y-e-s front ! Och, luk in front av ye, for the love o' marcy, an' don't be bigger gawms than y'are." Again he took up his parade before the squad.
  • * 2002 , Joseph O'Conner, Star of the Sea , Vintage 2003, page 10:
  • The farmer would accuse his son of idleness; the son would retort that his father was a drunken gawm .
  • * 2013 , Flann O'Brien, O'Dea's Your Man'', in ''Collected Plays and Teleplays (ISBN 1564789888), page 417:
  • In twenty-wan years in this box I don't believe I've ever pulled down wan of those signal yokes without half-expecting a pint of stout to come out down below somewhere. And isn't it the right gawm I'd look if it did come.

    Etymology 2

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb)
  • * 1909 , Eugene Wood, The Merry Yule-Tide'', in ''The New England Magazine , page 438:
  • In just about a month to-morrow morning we'll crunch the candy into the rug at every step, and all we touch will be gawmed up and sticky.
  • * 1920 , The Monitor , page 13:
  • A nation cannot get anywhere if it has things gawmed up.
  • * 1905 , Charles Battell Loomis, Minerva's Manoeuvres: The Cheerful Facts , page 78:
  • "Might as well be dead as all gawmed up with that fly paper stuff."

    Etymology 3

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • * 1885 , Mary Catherine Rowsell, Traitor Or Patriot?: A Tale of the Rye-house Plot , page 278:
  • "Ay, 'tis indeed," she went on, "and Mistress Ruth has eyes an' ears, an' uses 'em to better purpose than some folks I know" — and she threw a significant glance at her bewildered better half — "as can only stand gaffin' and gawmin' at a body."
  • * 1888 , W. R. Credland, A Farm in the Fens'', in the ''Papers of the Manchester Literary Club , volume 14, page 267:
  • “Now, yah ha done! and don't be gawming there, yah soft-headed chawbacon. Go hoam to yar mother!”
  • * 1897 , J. Carmichael, Man and Beast'', in the ''Monthly Packet , page 392:
  • ‘There, be off with you! how can I figure with you standin' gawmin' at me there like a stuck pig with an orange in its mouth!’
  • * 1897 , James Prior, Ripple and Flood: A Novel , page 368:
  • "What does he want," she said, "gawmin' at me as if a wor a wild beast show?"