glue
[gloo]
- a hard, impure, protein gelatin, obtained by boiling skins, hoofs, and other animal substances in water, that when melted or diluted is a strong adhesive.
- any of various solutions or preparations of this substance, used as an adhesive.
- any of various other solutions or preparations that can be used as adhesives.
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- to join or fasten with glue.
- to cover or smear (something) with glue (sometimes followed by up).
- to fix or attach firmly with or as if with glue; make adhere closely: to glue a model ship together.
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Origin of glue
1300–50; (noun) Middle English glu, gleu < Old French glu < Latin glūt- (stem of glūs); cognate with Greek gloiós gum, anything sticky; (v.) Middle English glywen, glewen, derivative of the noun
Synonyms
See more synonyms for glue on Thesaurus.com4. paste, gum, stick, cement, plaster.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for glue
Contemporary Examples
You see the handwork, the glue, how the people in the agency were working on it.
It is the “glue that holds often flaky single malts together,” as Broom puts it.
Maliki no longer wanted to pay for the glue that kept it there.
If you tear that bond the rip leaves open scars where the glue once was.
He would repaint their faces and glue human hair onto their heads.
Historical Examples
Cover the tongue thoroughly with glue, and also put some on the inside of the groove.
Flying MachinesW.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
I don't mind it much, because it keeps that glue smell off me, but it's fairly strong.
Alice AdamsBooth Tarkington
Pay me what you expect to make out o' glue, you mean, Virgil?
Alice AdamsBooth Tarkington
She was thinking vaguely about the glue factory and wondering if there might be "something in it" after all.
Alice AdamsBooth Tarkington
Don't you know how bad most glue is when you try to mend anything?
Alice AdamsBooth Tarkington
glue
- any natural or synthetic adhesive, esp a sticky gelatinous substance prepared by boiling animal products such as bones, skin, and horns
- any other sticky or adhesive substance
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- (tr) to join or stick together with or as if with glue
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French glu, from Late Latin glūs; compare Greek gloios
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for glue
n.
early 13c., from Old French glu "birdlime" (12c.), from Late Latin glutem (nominative glus) "glue," from Latin gluten "glue, beeswax," from PIE *gleit- "to glue, paste" (cf. Lithuanian glitus "sticky," glitas "mucus;" Old English cliða "plaster"), from root *glei- "to stick together" (see clay). In reference to glue from boiled animal hoofs and hides, c.1400. Glue-sniffing attested from 1963.
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v.
late 14c., from Old French gluer, from glu (see glue (n.)). Related: Glued; gluing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper