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:
It’s much simpler to persuade the audience to glom onto the spectacle of Haddix’s poor choices and forgive whatever murky choices Goode and his team make to thwart it.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2024
This so-called Wiedemann-Franz law has held ever since -- except in quantum materials, where electrons stop behaving as individual particles and glom together into a sort of electron soup.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 30, 2023
These nasty, bloodsucking parasites glom on to you when you least suspect it.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 7, 2023
It’s an apt curtain raiser for a 1994-95 season in which newness and sameness glom together indistinguishably, but “thirtysomething” glistened from its inception with a seductive uniqueness that this latest series does not initially share.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
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
Soon after the memes started making the rounds on Sunday, other politicians glommed on.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2024
But the latest generation has definitely glommed onto and revived some of the most deplorable, if I may use that word, beliefs from the past.
From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2024
“I immediately glommed onto Dawn because I’ve had that internal experience.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2024
It glommed on to certain artists and denounced others.
From Slate ● Jan. 19, 2024
Brad glommed him glumly in the gloaming, with more than a glimmer of gloomy foreboding.
From The Sloths of Kruvny by Vern Fearing
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
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
Antibodies hamper the virus by glomming onto all those spikes that stick up from it.
From Slate ● Mar. 17, 2021
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.
