glop

American  

[glop] / glɒp /

noun

Informal.

1. unappetizing food, especially of a semiliquid consistency.

2. any messy substance, especially of a semiliquid consistency.

3. sentimentality; mawkishness.

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Etymology

Origin of glop

First recorded in 1940–45; expressive word akin to goop ² gulp

Explanation

Glop is an unidentified blob of some damp, sticky, or slushy material. When you're walking down a city sidewalk, every once in a while you have to avoid stepping in some glop. If you don't like the looks of your oatmeal, you might describe it as glop, and your cat's stinky wet food is definitely glop — there's a distinctly distasteful implication to the word. You can also use glop to describe maudlin, overly sentimental poetry or movies: "I couldn't stand to watch that glop, so I turned off the TV." Glop came along in 1943, its sound imitating a ladleful of gummy gunk hitting a plate.

Example Sentences

Next, Doc’s Rube Goldberg-ian breakfast contraption whirs to action with burned toast and a glop of overflowing dog food, implying that he and his dog Einstein have themselves been missing for a while.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 30, 2025

In the palm of your hand, it looks like a glop of hair gel.

From Salon • Jun. 3, 2024

Remove as much of the glop as possible with your fingers — that’s the best way to do it — and then transfer the seeds to a sieve or colander.

From Washington Times • Oct. 26, 2023

No green pea soup here; instead, vile CG black glop spews forth freely.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 5, 2023

The first one threw a glop of molten rock at me and set my pants on fire.

From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan

Related Words

• goo
• grease
• gunk
• muck
• sediment
• silt
• slime