glue

UK/ɡluː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ɡlʉw/

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

Image: Babi Hijau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

glue (countable and uncountable, plural glues)

A hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance.
- Near-synonyms: adhesive, cement
- The wasp has always made the paper from which it constructs its nest, by uniting vegetable fibres with glue, while man was vexing himself with attempts to write on the bark of trees or a waxen or metallic table.1832 July, “Review: Habits of Insects”, in North American Review, volume 35, number 76, →JSTOR, page 217
Synonyms:

adhesive, cement
(figuratively) Anything that binds two things or people together.
- What is a kiss ? Why this, as some approve, / The sure sweet cement, glue, and lime of love.1648, Robert Herrick, “A Kiss”, in Hesperides, London: H. G. Bohn, published 1852, page 159
- In other words, the railways are the glue which holds the country together for those without cars, and for those of us who want to get between major cities sustainably and rapidly. The railways are not a 'nice to have extra', but a key component of our infrastructure.2022 December 28, Christian Wolmar, “Annus horribilus must mark a turning point for our railway”, in RAIL, number 973, page 45
A viscid secretion on the surface of certain plants.

Verb

glue (third-person singular simple present glues, present participle gluing or (uncommon) glueing, simple past and past participle glued)

(transitive) To join or attach something using glue.
- I need to glue the chair-leg back into place.
- […] The flesh [of the mistletoe berry] is sticky, and forms strings and ribbons between my thumb and forefinger. For the mistletoe, this viscous goop – and by the way, viscous comes to English from viscum – is crucial. The stickiness means that, after eating the berries, birds often regurgitate the...2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, page 7]”, in The New York Times, archived from the...
(figuratively, transitive) To cause something to adhere closely to; to cause to follow attentively.
- His eyes were glued to the screen.
- So as I lay on the ground with my ear glued close against the wall, who should march round the church but John Trenchard, Esquire, not treading delicately like King Agag, or spying, but just come on a voyage of discovery for himself.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC
Synonyms:

adhere, cling, stick, attach, bond, cleave, cohere, conglutinate, hug, stick together
(intransitive) To apply glue.
- "This is how the whiskers went, I think. Cut long strips of paper—I'm just using a second paper bag here—and run the flat edge of the scissors down the strip to make it curl. Voilà. Then glue each whisker, like so, next to the nose, four on a side." She was watching. I glued quickly so I wouldn't...1987, Josephine Humphreys, Rich in Love, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 236
- Children need help in understanding such things as how to control a paintbrush, how to cut efficiently, how to glue with care and dexterity, and even how to manage a sponge during a cleanup task.1994, Sylvia G. Feinburg, Mary Mindess, Eliciting Children's Full Potential: Designing & Evaluating Developmentally Based Programs for Young Children, Pacific Grove, C.A.: Brooks/Cole Publishing...

glue meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

glue in Hindi

sticky adhesive substance: गोंद gond, सरेस sares, लेस les

glue in Urdu

sticky adhesive substance: سَریس sares, گونْد gond, لیس les

glue in Bengali

sticky adhesive substance: আঠা aṭha, শিরিশ śiriś

More languagesFewer languages

glue in Malayalam: പശ paśa
glue in Kannada: ಅಂಟು aṇṭu
glue in Gujarati: ગુંદર gundar
glue in Sanskrit: लेप lepa, श्लेष्मन् śleṣmán
glue in Assamese: এঠা etha, আঠা atha
glue in Nepali: गम gam, ग्लू glū
glue in Pashto: څلېښ ślex̌, څلېښت ślex̌t
glue in Tagalog: kola, pandikit, pangola, pangkola
glue in Arabic: غِرَاء ḡirāʔ, لِزَاق lizāq, لِصَاق liṣāq, لَصَّقَ laṣṣaqa
glue in Malay: gam
glue in Indonesian: lem
glue in Persian: چسباندن Chasbândan
glue in Thai: กาว gaao
glue in Vietnamese: keo, hồ, cồn
glue in Myanmar: ကော် kau

Examples of glue in a sentence

They finished the bowl boat and coated it with the glue Jondalar made by boiling down the hooves, bone, and hide scraps.1990, Jean Marie Auel, chapter 9, in The Plains of Passage (Earth's Children), New York: Random House, published 2010, →ISBN, page 145:
And I had to try to be the glue to figure all of it out.2026 June 2, Alex Skopic, Chris Smalls, “Chris Smalls Is Still Fighting the Bosses”, in Current Affairs:
Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off.1961 May 9, Newton N. Minow, Television and the Public Interest:
Then glue each whisker, like so, next to the nose, four on a side." She was watching.1987, Josephine Humphreys, Rich in Love, New York, N.Y.: Viking, →ISBN, page 236:

All 40 example sentences with glue

Synonyms of glue

3 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of glue

Forms of glue

Noun
plural	glues
Verb
third-person singular present	glues
present participle	gluing
present participle uncommon	glueing
past participle	glued
past	glued

Past tense of glue: glued

Plural of glue: glues

Origin of 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).

Words formed from glue

Phrases with glue

8 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with glue

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about glue

What does glue mean?: Glue means a hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance.
What is glue in Hindi?: Glue in Hindi is गोंद (gond), सरेस (sares), लेस (les). See Glue meaning in Hindi.
How do you use glue in a sentence?: They finished the bowl boat and coated it with the glue Jondalar made by boiling down the hooves, bone, and hide scraps.
What part of speech is glue?: Glue can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce glue?: Glue is pronounced /ɡluː/ (UK).
What is the plural of glue?: The plural of glue is glues.

Words near glue in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: glue (page history and authors); glue (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); പശ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಅಂಟು (Kannada) (page history and authors); ગુંદર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); लेप (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-glue.ogg.

Cite this entry: “glue.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/glue. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.