glop
Americannoun
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unappetizing food, especially of a semiliquid consistency.
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any messy substance, especially of a semiliquid consistency.
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sentimentality; mawkishness.
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Instead of a budget rampaging out of control, it’s the beasts themselves, particularly Irene, a stunning creation that resembles a glop of marmalade with eyeballs bubbling up to the surface.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
It’s gloop and glop, with maybe more gloop.
From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2026
Remove as much of the glop as possible, then put the seeds in a colander and run under water, picking out and rinsing the individual seeds.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 26, 2023
There is no emotional glop in Mark Morris’s witty, wounding and brilliant new dance production, “The Look of Love,” which opened at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2022
It left a white, quarter-size glop where it landed and marched over to the wastebasket.
From "Wringer" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
