Etymology 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.
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
Biology, Natural sciences A millimeter-sized colour module found beyond the visual area V2 in the brain's parvocellular pathway.
Etymology 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.
1
To stick in globs or lumps.
[…] paint globbed on the canvas, marring the careful shadowing he'd created on the snowbank. It was an amateurish mistake, completely unworthy of an artist of Teddy's skill.2024, Mimi Matthews, The Muse of Maiden Lane, page 58:
glob
noun
Etymology Originates from the early (c. 1970) Unix command glob; clipping of global.
1
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences A limited pattern matching technique using wildcards, less powerful than a regular expression; such a pattern.
glob
verb
Etymology Originates from the early (c. 1970) Unix command glob; clipping of global.
In filename globbing, * means any character, group of characters, or no characters at all.2000, Jon Lasser, Think Unix, Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 123: