Other forms: gums
Your gums are the pink flesh in which your teeth are set. Bleeding gums, sore gums, gum disease.
The plural is much commoner than the singular. Gum disease, or gingivitis in its early form, is the leading cause of tooth loss in adults and is what dentists are checking when they prod. There is a separate word gum meaning a sticky substance from a tree, which gives chewing gum, bubble gum, gum tree and the adhesive on an envelope. Note gummy, and that gumshoe, meaning a detective, comes from quiet rubber soles.
1noungumThe pink flesh in which teeth are set.
“His gums bled every time he brushed.”
2nounstickyA sticky substance from a tree, or chewing gum.
“There was gum stuck under every desk in the room.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
gum is mouth tissue, or a sticky substance.
Also accepted in games: gums
The mouth word is Old English goma, meaning palate, from a root meaning to gape. The sticky word came separately from Greek kommi by way of Egyptian, so the two gums in English are unrelated and merely collided.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰeh₂- — to gape, yawn
Proto-Germanic
*gaumô
Proto-West Germanic
*gōmō
Old English
gōma — palate
Middle English
gom
English, today
gum
Built from
From Middle English gom, gome, gomme, goome, gum, gume, gumme, from Old English gōma (“palate”), from Proto-West Germanic gōmō, from Proto-Germanic gaumô, gōmô (“palate”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰeh₂- (“to gape, yawn”). 2 Cognate with cim gaumo (“palate”), German Gaum, Gaumen (“palate”), lb Gomm, Gumm (“palate”), Yiddish גומען (“palate”), Danish gumme (“gums”), Icelandic gómur (“gum”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gom (“palate”); also Latin hio (“to gape, yawn”), Ancient Greek χάσκω (“to gape, yawn”), Lithuanian gomurỹs (“palate”), Bulgarian зе́я (“to gape”), Czech zát, zet (“to gape”), Polish ziać (“to pant”), Russian зия́ть (“to gape, yawn”), Serbo-Croatian зи́јати, zíjati (“to gape, yawn”), Ukrainian зя́яти (“to gape”), xto koy- (“mouth”), txb koyn (“mouth”). More at yawn.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA