Didn't know it had fallen out of use!
Didn't know it had fallen out of use!
When Il Matrimonio was a little boy, his father said to him one day, 'don't be so gormless.'
Poor Il Matrimonio asked 'what is 'gorm'?'
Quite.
c.1746, "wanting sense," a British dialectal word, from gome "notice, understanding" (c.1200), from Old Norse gaumr "care, heed," of unknown origin; + -less. Slang definitions & phrases for gormless.
When Il Matrimonio was a little boy, his father said to him one day, 'don't be so gormless.'
Poor Il Matrimonio asked 'what is 'gorm'?'
Quite.
c.1746, "wanting sense," a British dialectal word, from gome "notice, understanding" (c.1200), from Old Norse gaumr "care, heed," of unknown origin; + -less. Slang definitions & phrases for gormless.
By the way, Amber, you might like this thread: New word!
Ah yes, Gormless was a word very much used by my father in the 70s, to describe my teenage persona and the music I listened to!
Gormless is one of those interesting words which doesn't have an obvious opposite. There's a good treatment of the subject here: Words that ought to have opposites, but don’t
Another story is that 'slow worm' in fact is derived from 'slay worm', because of their eating habits.