glob

(glŏb)
n.

1. A small drop; a globule.
2. A soft thick lump or mass: a glob of mashed potatoes; globs of red mud.

[Middle English globbe, large mass, from Latin globus, globular mass.]

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[Unix; common] To expand special characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also called globbing). The Unix conventions for filename wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly encountered include the following:

Some examples: “He said his name was [KC]arl” (expresses ambiguity). “I don't read talk.politics.*” (any of the talk.politics subgroups on Usenet). Other examples are given under the entry for X. Note that glob patterns are similar, but not identical, to those used in regexps.

Historical note: The jargon usage derives from glob, the name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne versions of the Unix shell.

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noun
noun

A mass or lump of some liquid or semi-liquid substance. (1900 —) .
New Scientist [The fuel] is probably floating around the half-empty fuel tank in globs (1962).

[Prob. blend of blob noun and gob noun, mass, lump.]

Previous:	glitzy, glitz, glitterati
Next:	glom, glop, gnat's piss

For a list of words related to glob, see:

• Foolishness, Bunkum, and Trifles

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See words rhyming with "glob."

Dansk (Danish)
n. - klat

Nederlands (Dutch)
klont, druppel

Français (French)
n. - grosse goutte, boulette (de chewing gum)

Deutsch (German)
n. - Tropfen, Klumpen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - στρογγυλή μάζα πηχτού υγρού

Italiano (Italian)
goccia, zolla

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pequena gota (f), glóbulo (m)

Русский (Russian)
ком

Español (Spanish)
n. - gota, terrón, tormo, gotita, grumo, masa redonda

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - klick

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
水珠, 东西

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 水珠, 東西

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 동그란 것[물건]

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 小滴

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) كتله صغيرة‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮גוש או כמות של חומר נוזל-למחצה, גוש, טיפה‬

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