oakum

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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.

oakum (countable and uncountable, plural oakums)

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.
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.

fibrous caulking material