glom
Other forms: glommed; glomming; gloms
To figuratively grab or seize something is to glom onto it. A local newspaper might simply glom onto whatever stories the larger national papers are covering.
While you can also use glom to simply mean "steal," as when a pickpocket gloms your wallet in the subway, today we often use this verb to describe a kind of latching on to an idea, issue, or topic. If polls show most voters care about income inequality, every single candidate is likely to glom onto this theme in some way. The "steal" meaning is oldest, an American word borrowed from the Scottish glaum.
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seize upon or latch onto something
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take by theft
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Vocabulary lists containing glom
Here we present 15 words that passed through Gaelic on their way to English. Some are stereotypically Gaelic, like bog and clan, but others, like loop and curmudgeon, may surprise you. You can read more about words from the Emerald Isle in Beyond Shamrocks and Leprechauns.
In the summer of 1968, three sisters travel to California to visit their estranged mother. While there, they learn about the fight for equality and civil rights.
Simon Kelleher publishes gossip about his classmates online. When he unexpectedly dies during detention, the four students who were in the room with him become prime suspects in his murder.