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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

glue.

A hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɡluː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡlʉw/British, Southern, Standard/ɡlu/General-American/ɡlʉː/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance.

    countable · uncountable

  2. Anything that binds two things or people together.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable

  3. A viscid secretion on the surface of certain plants.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gleyH- Proto-Indo-European *glóh₁ytn̥ Proto-Italic *gloiten Latin glūten Late Latin glūs Old French glubor. Middle English glew English glue From Middle English glew, glue, from Old French glu (“glue, birdlime”), from Late Latin glūs (stem glūt-), from Latin glūten. Related to clay. Partially displaced native Old English līm (“glue”) and ġelīman (“to glue”) (whence modern lime).

verb/ɡluː/Received-Pronunciation/ɡlʉw/British, Southern, Standard/ɡlu/General-American/ɡlʉː/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To join or attach something using glue.

    transitive
    I need to glue the chair-leg back into place.

  2. To cause something to adhere closely to; to cause to follow attentively.

    figuratively · transitive
    His eyes were glued to the screen.

  3. To apply glue.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gleyH- Proto-Indo-European *glóh₁ytn̥ Proto-Italic *gloiten Latin glūten Late Latin glūs Old French glubor. Middle English glew English glue From Middle English glew, glue, from Old French glu (“glue, birdlime”), from Late Latin glūs (stem glūt-), from Latin glūten. Related to clay. Partially displaced native Old English līm (“glue”) and ġelīman (“to glue”) (whence modern lime).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.