GUM UP Definition & Meaning

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gum up

verb

to cover, dab, or stiffen with gum
informal.
to make a mess of; bungle (often in the phrase gum up the works )

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Idioms and Phrases

Ruin or bungle something, as in The front office has gummed up the sales campaign thoroughly . This idiom is also put as gum up the works , as in John's changes in procedures have gummed up the works in the shipping department . [ Slang ; c. 1900]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

The outcry wasn't entirely fair to Klobuchar who turned immediately after the quote in question to discuss real ways of gumming up the worst actions of the Trump administration.

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Many importers then quietly used the San Pedro ports to store containers, causing a logjam of ships waiting to berth and gumming up the entire supply chain system.

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The housing market gummed up, people unable to move and all this at time when there is huge demand for more homes.

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He said plastic bags are problematic for material recovery facilities where they are known to gum up machinery.

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They don’t want to be picking time-consuming fights with the Lords, or creating laws that could be gummed up with hundreds of possible amendments – helpful tweaks - from their lordships.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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