GAWMLESS END
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"Gawmless" - a definition
gawmless (Lancashire):
Idiotic, stupid, slow, dull. Compare Liverpool "gormless."In Lancashire, "to gawm" means to take notice or to understand. Hence a "gawmless" person is an idiot.
Source: GLD
Definition of gormlessness from the OED:
Wanting sense, or discernment. Hence gormlessness, the quality of being gormless.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gaum as:
"attention, understanding" and then traces that word through the Middle English gome and the Old Norse gaum, gaumr. Its definition of what it considers a chiefly British word: "Lacking intelligence", "stupid."
Examples of Usage
The first two usage examples replicate the word's British dialect source gaum:- Jeremy Collier first throws out a gawmless in c1746.
- Emily Bronte then offers a more knowing usage in her Wuthering Heights (1845): "Did I ever look so stupid: so 'gaumless' as Joseph calls it?"
- Not until the late 19c, the OED will have us think, does today's R sneak into gormless.