Etymograph

English

glomus

Glomus comes from Latin glomus ‘ball-shaped mass’, and perhaps goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gel-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gel-1‘form into a ball’uncertain
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEglomus2‘ball-shaped mass’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 2001glomus2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin glomus
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English glomus
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2001, Hao Zhu, SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION: How Do Cells Sense Oxygen?: “The up-regulation of this enzyme in glomus cells of…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*gel-Wiktionary, Latin glomus‘form into a ball’uncertain
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEglomusWiktionary, English glomus‘ball-shaped mass’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 2001glomusWiktionary, English glomus. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2001, Hao Zhu, SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION: How Do Cells Sense Oxygen?: “The up-regulation of this enzyme in glomus cells of…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *gel- ‘form into a ball’

children, child, cold, clean, cloud, chill, gel, cluster, jelly, globe, colt, gelatin, clout, clot, gelato, clough, ganglion, glebe, klutz, clod, globulin, globus, 47 more

through Latin glomus ‘ball-shaped mass’

conglomerate, 6 more

Today it means

noun A fold of the mesothelium arising near the base of the mesentery in the pronephron, and containing a ball of blood vessels.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “glomus”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin glomus. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *gel- / glomus

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