• gormless • Part of Speech: Adjective Meaning: Lacking
intelligence and vitality, having no common sense or initiative;
dull. Notes: Something went wrong in the derivation of this
word. It is obviously derived from gorm, but a gorm is a dull,
witless person. So, the suffix -less, which usually means
"without", is obviously out of place here. Today's Good Word
does, however, boast an adverb, gormlessly, and a regular noun,
gormlessness. Today's word is very British though US English
does have a gorm, which means "axle grease". In Play: Although
today's Good Word is totally British, it functions well in any
English-speaking home: "Mom, you are so totally gormless! You
started the coffee maker, but forgot to put the coffee pot under
the spout!" Indeed, gormless is at home in the home or in the
workplace: "Sidney, it was so gormless of you to put the ink
cartridge in your shirt pocket after taking it out of the
printer." Word History: Today's Good Word comes from the
dialectal form gawm "sense", the English inte