glob
/ɡlɑb/noun, verb
glob is spelled G-L-O-B: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 54,192nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, glob means “A round, shapeless or amorphous lump, as of a semisolid substance” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of glob is globs.
How many letters and syllables are in glob?
| Letters | 4: G-L-O-B |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words; the 54,192nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is glob?
Glob appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 54,192nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce glob?
- US /ɡlɑb/
- UK /ɡlɒb/
Glob has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-glob.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with glob?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as glob from its last stressed vowel (/ɑb/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: blog.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of glob
- globs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- globbing participle, present
- globbed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does glob mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A round, shapeless or amorphous lump, as of a semisolid substance.
He put a glob of paint into the cup and went on painting.
- 2
A millimeter-sized colour module found beyond the visual area V2 in the brain's parvocellular pathway.
- 3
A limited pattern matching technique using wildcards, less powerful than a regular expression; such a pattern.
verb
- 1
To stick in globs or lumps.
- 2
To carry out pattern matching using a glob.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Glob in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | mazacote, masacote |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does glob come from?
Possibly a blend of blob + gob, or a clipping of globule. An element of sound symbolism is clearly involved: compare such phonetically and semantically similar words as glop, gop, lob, blob, lump, clump and clod. (Still, globe, clump and clod may be related via the Proto-Indo-European root *gel-; compare clew.) In the biological sense, proposed by Bevil R. Conway and Doris Y. Tsao, by analogy with the cytochrome-oxidase "blobs" of V1, an earlier stage in the hierarchical elaboration of colour.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).