If you “glom” something, or “glom onto” it, you’re taking it or occupying it. Although it sounds like a slang term, you can find it published in newspapers, magazines, and even Science Daily: “The nanoparticles ‘glom onto the flies,’ Rand noted while watching a video of flies in the test tubes.”
Not only is “glom” less slangy than you might think, it’s older than you might think, too. Here it is in a quote from 1925: “I learnt that stealing clothes from a clothes-line is expressed in Hoboland by the hilarious phrase, ‘Glomming the grape-vine’.” It would seem that back in those days “glom” was used specifically to mean stealing. Nowadays, of course, it’s generally used for appropriating things that you’re allowed to, but you might be acting a bit greedily by doing so, such as “those people glommed onto all the front-row seats”.
“Glom” is even older than 1925 though; it appears (with a different spelling) in Jack London’s The Road, from 1907: “We … discovered that our hands were gloved. ‘Where’d ye glahm ’em?’ I asked. ‘Out of an engine-cab,’ he answered.” London’s writing would seem to be the first time “glom” (or “glahm”) appeared in English, although the Scottish word “glaum”, which means “to snatch up,” is almost certainly its immediate predecessor. “Glaum,” in turn, comes from “glam,” which is a Gaelic word that means to grab. So although London glommed onto “glom” first, it turns out to have oodles of history behind it.
Speaking of “oodles,” which means a great amount of whatever you’re talking about, the word showed up in the 1860s. The leading theory about where it came from is that it’s a shortened form of “scadoodles,” which was American slang around that time. “Scadoodles” also meant a large amount. “Scadoodles,” for that matter, is suspected of being a lengthened (for emphasis, or maybe just because it’s fun to say) of “scad.” And “scad,” as you’re already guessed (or know), means “a lot”. But although you can find scads of mentions of “oodles” over the years, and it might be related to those other words, there isn’t any known source previous to their first appearance. Another guess is that “oodles” comes from “caboodle,” as in “the whole kit and caboodle” (meaning “everything”) — that phrase was in widespread use in the 1860s as well. If “oodles” does come from “caboodle” (which is, remember, just a guess), then it does have a possible derivation. “Caboodle” is from the Dutch word “boedel,” which means things you own; your stuff.
But it’s also possible that “oodles” and its relatives originally caught on because somebody’s toddler came out with it one day and everybody had fun saying it. That sort of thing has been known to happen — you could google it.
