globular
Americanadjective
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globe-shaped; spherical.
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composed of or having globules.
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worldwide; global.
adjective
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shaped like a globe or globule
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having or consisting of globules
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of globular
Explanation
Something that's globular is round or spherical, like the big, globular heads your little brother adds when he's molding little people out of clay. Globular, "globe-shaped," comes from the Latin globus, "round mass or sphere." This adjective shows up a lot in scientific writing, including to describe a rounded mass of stars bound together by gravity — a globular cluster, or in astronomy shorthand, a globular. Strictly speaking, anything that's round is globular, from a tennis ball to the moon.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"He had a lot of edema, his face was very swollen, there was edema on his limbs, and a globular abdomen, like a balloon."
From Barron's • Apr. 23, 2026
"Under conservative assumptions, the four clusters represent the entire globular cluster population of CDG-2."
From Science Daily • Feb. 21, 2026
Another was Cyttaria dawinii, a small globular parasitic fungus collected by Charles Darwin in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in South America during the HMS Beagle voyage between 1831 and 1836.
From BBC • May 18, 2025
Sporting globular dark eyes and fuzzy, caramel-colored fur, the baby ochi — a physical puppet that has been likened to a Gremlin and Baby Yoda — is quite cute.
From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2025
She picked up a card and almost pressed her globular nose to it to look at it closely.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
