glom

See also: glöm

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlɒm/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒm

Etymology 1

From Scottish English glom, glaum (“to grab or snatch at”), a variant of clam, claum (“to clutch, seize, grasp, reach for”), from Middle English *clammen, from Old English clæmman (“to pinch, press, inclose”), from Proto-West Germanic *klammjan. Related to clamp.

Verb

glom (third-person singular simple present gloms, present participle glomming, simple past and past participle glommed)

1. (transitive, informal) To take.
   • 2013 October 18, Thom Thomas, ...Give or Take a Shilling.: Discovery, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 380:

     Mac glommed a handful of Bott's hair and ear and twisted it, “Ya be listenin' ta me now that I 'ave yer attention. And ifin ya don't, I'll be obliged ta hack off yer pretty little ear wif me blade. Would ya like that, Mr. Mouth, […]

   • 2014 August 14, Robert Leslie Bellem, Coffin for a Coward, eStar Books, →ISBN:

     As soon as I was alone I glommed a quick gander into the bedroom, saw the Bonham punk was resting quietly under the covers. I withdrew, made myself cozy in an easy chair, began burning gaspers and reading magazines.

   • 2019 June 4, James Ellroy, The L.A. Quartet: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz; Introduction by Tom Nolan, Everyman's Library, →ISBN, page 499:

     Currently scripting RKO B westerns, under yet another monicker, the work fronted by a politically acceptable hack writer who glommed a 35 percent cut.

2. (intransitive, informal) To grab hold of, seize; catch, grab or latch onto.
   • 2008 December 31, Merritt Abrash, Things in Heaven and Earth, Author House, →ISBN, page 274:

     Winslow glommed at once onto the benefits of such an arrangement. “So I would set the terms, conditions, and whatever fee I chose to pay myself?” “You catch on quick!” said the cuddly clerk impishly.

   • 2010 August 1, Linda O. Johnston, Not a Moment Too Soon, Silhouette, →ISBN, page 98:

     known what she was thinking, for his mind had glommed at the same time onto the same possibility: that Margo's grumpy but otherwise seemingly harmless, neighbor, whom they had interviewed before, could, after all, be the kidnapper.

   • 2014 May 28, Sarah Terez Rosenblum, “After 15 Years Of Lesbianism, I'm Dating Men And I Have No Idea What I'm Doing”, in XOJane‎^[1], archived from the original on 31 May 2014:

     Bisexuals, she said, glommed onto lesbians because they feared their fathers, or had been devastated by ex-boyfriends.

   • 2015, Janet Rae-Dupree, Pat DuPree, Anatomy and Physiology Workbook For Dummies, 2nd edition, page 217:

     In short, blood comes through the artery (arteriole) and material gloms onto the nephron before twisting through the near (proximal) tubes, looping the loop, twisting through the distant (distal) tubes, and collecting itself at the other end.

3. (intransitive, informal) To clump up, to seize together into a lump or conglomeration.
   • 2000, Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth, page 17:

     “The oil pan cracked, the engine seized, and the internal parts glommed together.”

   • 2009 August 11, Nancy Grace, The Eleventh Victim, Hachette Books, →ISBN:

     Her frosty red lipstick kept glomming at the corners of her mouth, giving her an unnatural clown frown. Hailey later heard they, too, had divorced. Standing there, facing Leonard's steely gaze and imposing figure, Hailey had no problem […]

   • 2013 November 11, Susan Kiernan-Lewis, The Irish End Games, Books 1-3, Susan Kiernan-Lewis:

     The following day when Fiona had gone to pour the poteen into a smaller bottle so that she could use the bigger one to store cooking oil, nearly a half a dozen undissolved aspirin tablets were glommed at the bottom of the bottle.

Derived terms

• glom on
• glom onto
• glommer

Translations

to steal, to grab

• Bulgarian: крада (bg) (krada), грабвам (bg) (grabvam)
• Italian: sgraffignare (it), grattare (it)
• Russian: кра́сть (ru) n or impf (krástʹ), хвата́ть (ru) n or impf (xvatátʹ)

References

• glom, entry in TheFreeDictionary.com.

Etymology 2

Variant of glaum, gloom (“to frown, scowl, stare at”).

Verb

glom (third-person singular simple present gloms, present participle glomming, simple past and past participle glommed)

1. (intransitive) Alternative form of glaum (“look, stare”).
   • 1945, Manning Long, Short Shrift:

     She glommed at herself from every angle that could be achieved by twisting her neck, backing off from the mirror with her hands on her overalled hips and tossing back the tumble of dark curls that, like Birdie's, lay thick and hot […]

   • 2015 April 14, A.K. Ashic, Book One of Weird and Wacky Tales & Other Such Nonsense, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN:

     Its black, withered-up, pinholes for eyes glommed at little Isabel. And with great anticipation it began to speak. “Why Gelp, that's a fine fat little one you have there. You always find the good ones. Are you on your way to market […]"

   • 1994 September 1, Rex Stout, Three Witnesses, Crimeline, →ISBN, page 190:

     I apologized for disturbing her and said I would deeply appreciate it if she would let me take a picture of a painting […] It would have been a pleasure, and also instructive, to do a little glomming at the rugs and furniture and other miscellaneous objects, especially the dozen or more pictures on the walls, but that would have to wait.

   • 2021 December 3, Jiří Kratochvil, The Vow: A Requiem for the Fifties, Glagoslav Publications, →ISBN:

     […] at last, he would be using his Leica again, […] to shamelessly strip them to their underclothes in an attempt to eternise them in flagranti, after which, in his darkroom, he would seen what intimate details would emerge from the developing pans, captured by his camera... and perhaps he would play with those intimate details under the enlarger... (The private eye had his own private collection of intimate details, worked up by the enlarger. Should anyone take those large format obscenities in hand, they'd never guess that he was glomming at a stable of prominent highly placed promiscuous mares.)

Etymology 3

Noun

glom (plural gloms)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Short for glomerulus.

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔm

Verb

glom

1. singular past indicative of glimmen

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *glōm, from Proto-Germanic *glōmaz. Cognate with Norwegian glom (“transparent cuticle or membrane”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡloːm/

Noun

glōm m

1. gloom; twilight, gloaming
2. darkness

Usage notes

• The exact gender of glōm is uncertain. It is usually assumed to be a strong masculine noun.

Declension

Declension of glom (strong a-stem)

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	glōm	glōmas
accusative	glōm	glōmas
genitive	glōmes	glōma
dative	glōme	glōmum

Derived terms

• ǣfenglōm
• mistglōm
• nihtglōm

Related terms

• *glōmian
• glōmung

Descendants

• Middle English: *glom
  • English: gloom
  • Scots: glom, gloam