gum up | Idiomator

Meaning: (intransitive)To becomegooeyorgummy.Some types of lubricating greasegum upas they age.; (transitive)To cause to begooeyorgummy, especially with the effect ofobstructingthe operation of somemechanismorprocess.Aging grease hadgummed upthe record changer.1919,Ring Lardner Sr., chapter 2, inThe Real Dope:I guess they's about 6 other clubs in the American League that if they had seen my name in the dead they wouldn't shed off enough tears togum upthe infield.1921,William MacLeod Raine, chapter 21, inGunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country:He knew when the tools were in clay and had becomegummed up. He could tell just when the drill had cut into hard rock at an acute angle and was running out of the perpendicular to follow the softer stratum.2000,Jeffery Deaver,Death of a Blue Movie Star‎[1],→ISBN, page286:The timer was digital, so there was no way to physicallygum upthe mechanism.; (transitive,idiomatic,by extension)To makenon-functional; tointerferewith or put into a state ofdisorder; toruin.1918,Henry B[lake] Fuller,On the Stairs, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.:Hougton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.:The Riverside Press,→OCLC, part V, section I,pages148–149:He had the car pushed to a near-by stable, amidst the mixed emotions of the little crowd, and next day he had it hauled home. / "You were right," he said, when I met him out again in it, a week later. "Itwasgummed up, so to speak; but it's working like a charm to-day.[…]"1966July 29, “Europe: Permanent Watch?”, inTime:Erhard presumably felt it was no time to give his enemies grounds for charging him withgumming uprelations with France.2010December 30, Sam Howe Verhovek, “Can Air Travel Be Improved in Bad Weather?”, inNew York Times, retrieved 15 Aug. 2011:In the old days, a storm like this wouldgum upthe entire system.

Examples:

EN: You big clunk, you'll gum up the works.
ES: Grandísimo tonto, armarás un desastre.
EN: I knew if I left you alone, you'd gum up the works.
ES: Lo miré y supe que si lo dejaba solo,jorobaría todo.
EN: - What you wanna do, gum up the works?
ES: Lo estropearéis todo.
EN: Say, I do hope Mrs. Topper doesn't gum up our good deed.
ES: Oye, espero que la Sra. Topper no estropee nuestra buena obra.
EN: And will that gum up the house. Oh, gosh!
ES: La casa se llena de gente.
EN: Then why'd you promise not to fight the divorce and then gum up the works?
ES: Prometiste no oponerte y has incordiado todo lo posible.
EN: The only chance I've got of catching them and bringing them in is by staying far away from you because you'd only gum up the works.
ES: La única posibilidad que tengo de atraparlos y entregarlos... es alejarme de ustedes porque sólo conseguirían jorobarlo todo.
EN: I wouldn't want to gum up your party.
ES: No quiero aguar la fiesta.
EN: You don't wanna gum up the works.
ES: No querrás echarlo todo a perder.
EN: When I hide you at starvation wages, I expected to get a drifter who would gum up the works.
ES: Cuando le contraté con un sueldo de miseria, esperaba encontrarme a un vagabundo que lo haría todo mal.
EN: I'm not going to let a cheat, chiseler, And a crumb gum up the worse.
ES: No voy a permitir que un asqueroso timador y tramposo lo arruine todo.
EN: Are you trying to gum up the works?
ES: ¿Intentas reventar el trabajo?
EN: You gum up the scenery.
ES: Arruinan el paisaje.
EN: But don't let it gum up the work around here.
ES: Pero no dejes que eso interfiera con el trabajo.
EN: Call me that in front of the bank, you'll gum up the works!
ES: Si me llamas así delante de los banqueros, arruinarás todo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).