oakum

From Middle English okome, from Old English ācumba (“oakum”, literally “that which has been combed out, off-combings”), a derivative of ācemban (“to comb out”), from Proto-Germanic *uz- + *kambijaną (“to comb”), from Proto-Indo-European *uds-, *ūd- (“out”) + *ǵombʰ-, *ǵembʰ- (“tooth, nail; to pierce, gnaw through”). More at out, comb.

• IPA^(key): /ˈəʊkəm/

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oakum (countable and uncountable, plural oakums)

1. A material, consisting of tarred fibres, used to caulk or pack joints in plumbing, masonry, and wooden shipbuilding.
   • 2016, Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, Penguin Books (2017), page 116:

     Earlier that morning he had gotten the oakum ready for the deck, soaking the hemp in pine tar.

2. The coarse portion separated from flax or hemp in hackling.
   • 1983, Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde:

     My eyesight began to fail, from the strain of picking oakum in my cell.

• (flax or hemp fibers separated in hackling): tow, hards

• Okuma