Word of the Day

: July 18, 2023

glom

verb GLAHM

What It Means

To glom is to take or get something. Glom is most often used in the phrase “glom on to” to refer to taking something for your own use, becoming strongly attached to or associated with someone or something, or becoming aware of something.

// The book consists of a collection of humorous essays glommed from popular magazines.

// That author is known for glomming on to other people's ideas as if they were his own.

// Other business owners have not yet glommed onto the impact the new parking garage will have on the town.

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glom in Context

“I am aware that adaptations have been with us for centuries and that Shakespeare borrowed his best plots. But that doesn't stop this book lover from being suspicious when movies and plays glom onto my favorite titles.” — Chris Hewitt, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 21 May 2023

Did You Know?

It's a classic case of glomming: Americans seized on glaum (a term from Scots dialect that basically means “to grab”) and appropriated it as their own, changing it to glom in the process. Glom first meant “to steal” (as in the purse-snatching, robber kind of stealing), but over time that meaning got stretched to include figurative uses. Today the term is most familiar in the phrase “glom on to,” or “glom onto,” which can mean “to appropriate for one's own use,” as in “glomming on to another's idea”; “to grab hold of,” as in “glommed onto the last cookie”; “to latch on to,” as in “glom on to an opinion” or “glom onto an influential friend”; or “to become aware of,” as in “glomming onto the potential of this new technology.”