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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.”
Synonyms
Examples of glom in a Sentence
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, The Verge, 22 Nov. 2024
Mainstream corporate America gloms onto a new artist with an improbable rise and anoints them their marketing cheat code of the moment.
—Hershal Pandya, Vulture, 27 Sep. 2024
The nonprofit also glommed onto the fact that technology trials for sortation and other forms of preparation must be a priority because many of its employees are differently abled, meaning that adaptations will need to be made.
—Jasmin Malik Chua, Sourcing Journal, 3 Sep. 2019
Subsequently, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah glommed on to the Big 12 while Stanford and California went bi-coastal, accepting last-minute refuge in the ACC.
—Daniel Libit, Sportico.com, 3 Sep. 2019
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Dictionary Entries Near glom
Cite this Entry
“Glom.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glom. Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.
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