glom
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to steal.
-
to catch or grab.
-
to look at.
noun
verb phrase
verb
-
to attach oneself to or associate oneself with
-
to acquire, esp without paying
Etymology
Origin of glom
1895–1900, compare Scots glaum, glam to snatch at, glammis jaws of a vise, apparently < Scots Gaelic glàm to grab, clutch, influenced by clam 2
Explanation
To figuratively grab or seize something is to glom onto it. A local newspaper might simply glom onto whatever stories the larger national papers are covering. While you can also use glom to simply mean "steal," as when a pickpocket gloms your wallet in the subway, today we often use this verb to describe a kind of latching on to an idea, issue, or topic. If polls show most voters care about income inequality, every single candidate is likely to glom onto this theme in some way. The "steal" meaning is oldest, an American word borrowed from the Scottish glaum.
Vocabulary lists containing glom
English Words Derived from Gaelic
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One Crazy Summer
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Posted
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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.
See Examples For:
These days, a horror film must also be a blistering allegory for real life, with plenty of subtextual significance for the thinking viewer to glom onto.
From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2026
Using mouse antibodies that glom on to proteasomes, and other methods, the investigators found the proteasomes on the surface of neurons in the spinal cord, dorsal root ganglia, sciatic nerve and peripheral nerves innervating skin.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 12, 2024
These nasty, bloodsucking parasites glom on to you when you least suspect it.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 7, 2023
But it’s one thing to glom onto internet success stories and another to create them in-house.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
She says it’s because I’m “the right person for the job,” but I know she’s just trying to glom off my reputation as the main guy behind the paper chain project.
From "Linked" by Gordon Korman
Sure, some immature viewers might have glommed onto the edgy comedy of yesteryear.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2026
Villarreal: The way people like glommed onto it, like it was all over TikTok with captions like, “This is me in my kitchen.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2025
Elon Musk, previously a longtime Signal fan, glommed onto Rufo’s posts to allude to “known vulnerabilities with Signal,” in a tweet that saw him get corrected by his own beloved Community Notes feature.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2025
Although it, too, contained these microspheres, they had glommed together into clumps of uneven size.
From Science Magazine ● May 21, 2024
She kept her eyes glommed onto you all the time.”
From The Job An American Novel by Sinclair Lewis
Wall Street is glomming on to yet another acronym inspired in part by Mexican cuisine.
From MarketWatch ● May 9, 2026
It is alienating, and you wonder what it is, and whether it’s genuine or just a way of publicly glomming on to the perceived grievances and resentments of his supporters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 19, 2026
What have you noticed about traditional media glomming on to this moment of increased interest in women’s sports?
From Slate ● Sep. 14, 2024
Instead gravity alone is this invisible substance’s master—meaning that in mere moments after the big bang, when primordial chaos otherwise reigned, gravity immediately began glomming together dark matter into large clumps known as halos.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2022
But his narrowed eyes bounce off me, glomming on to something beyond.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
