gum up the works in English

Forms: gums up the works [present, singular, third-person], gumming up the works [participle, present], gummed up the works [participle, past], gummed up the works [past] [Show additional information ▼] [Hide additional information ▲]

Etymology: From gum up + the works. Etymology templates: {{m|en|gum up}} gum up, {{m|en|the works}} the works Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} gum up the works (third-person singular simple present gums up the works, present participle gumming up the works, simple past and past participle gummed up the works)

Inflected forms

[Show JSON for post-processed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for post-processed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gum up"
      },
      "expansion": "gum up",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "the works"
      },
      "expansion": "the works",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From gum up + the works.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gums up the works",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gumming up the works",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gummed up the works",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gummed up the works",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "gum up the works (third-person singular simple present gums up the works, present participle gumming up the works, simple past and past participle gummed up the works)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of throw a spanner in the works"
      ],
      "id": "en-gum_up_the_works-en-verb-5~pJntkd",
      "links": [
        [
          "throw a spanner in the works",
          "throw a spanner in the works#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Synonym of throw a spanner in the works"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "gum up the works"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "gum up"
      },
      "expansion": "gum up",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "the works"
      },
      "expansion": "the works",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From gum up + the works.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gums up the works",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gumming up the works",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gummed up the works",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gummed up the works",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "gum up the works (third-person singular simple present gums up the works, present participle gumming up the works, simple past and past participle gummed up the works)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of throw a spanner in the works"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "throw a spanner in the works",
          "throw a spanner in the works#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Synonym of throw a spanner in the works"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "synonym",
            "synonym-of"
          ],
          "word": "throw a spanner in the works"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "gum up the works"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.

"gum up the works" meaning in English

Verb

Inflected forms