gumming
- n ineffectual chewing (as if without teeth)
- v cover, fill, fix or smear with or as if with gum
- v grind with the gums; chew without teeth and with great difficulty
- v become sticky
- v exude or form gum
- The GOP has been successful in gumming up the works of the Senate in recent years, forcing Reid to file for cloture a record 97 times last session well over the previous record .
- Engineers added a plastic plate beneath the shifter to prevent spilled coffee and other flotsam from falling into the mechanism and gumming it up.
- The complexities of mortgage securities and the uncertainty surrounding future home prices and the economy, it seemed, were gumming up the system.