glom on

See also: glömön

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

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

1. (intransitive, slang) To attach oneself to something.
   • 2016 October 8, Sally Adee, “It’s just common sense”, in New Scientist‎^[1], number 3094, page 22:

     But as Siri’s many noted missteps attest, a computer really has no idea what you’re talking about. It breaks your speech down, gloms on to keywords and makes a good guess at what you’re asking.

2. (intransitive) To comprehend something. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
   • 2015 October 10, Dan Lett, “Building great roads poses great challenge. Can science, planning finally trump Mother Nature, financial pressures?”, in The Free Press (Winnipeg)‎^[2]:

     Engineers began to glom on to the idea that properly laid crushed rock, interlocked in a particular way at the base of a road, could do much of what the metal reinforcement did — namely hold the structural integrity of the roadway but at a lower overall cost.

Synonyms

• (understand): cotton on

Related terms

• glom onto

Anagrams

• Mongol, mongol