glued to
24
4.5
- idiom
- Informal
:
pegado a
- Since the movie was so thrilling, we were glued to our seats until the very end.
- glued to the TV
- glued to the television
- glued to the screen
And I look around and I see people's eyes glued to the set.
- And I look around and I see people's eyes glued to the set.
- I'm my best self creatively, even productively, if I'm, if I'm not glued to doom scrolling or whatever else it may be.
- And then all hell broke loose in Washington and I was like glued to the television for days on end, doom scrolling.
- This is just like large corporations using AI to keep you glued in, glued to the site with no outcome at the end that's useful to you.
- In today's world, we increasingly live our lives late into the night, whether it's work, obligations, socialising or glued to a screen.
- And they started recommending to users to watch more and more content full of hate and fear and greed to keep them glued to the screen.
- Because we are just glued to the drama and we go through the comments and we're happy as Larry watching as people are being torn apart.
Examples
-
Our eyes remained glued to the letter lying on the wooden table.
Fiction book (1996) -
And I look around and I see people's eyes glued to the set.
-
Just keep your eyes glued to that door.
-
All right, you stay glued to that seat.
-
Your eyes get glued to 'em, and you can forget about everything else.
Fiction book (1992) -
How did you find yourself in this position where all of us in Los Angeles were glued to your app more than anything else?
-
Everybody was still in the stadium, glued to their seats!
-
A young girl of 17 sits, her face glued to the computer monitor in front of her.
Fiction book (1996) -
My eyes stayed glued to his face; his every expression was a revelation.
Fiction book (2000) -
We stayed up and, like everyone else, I'd been glued to the Select and Judiciary Committee hearings night after night.
Synonyms
245
4.8
Very strongly interested in someone or something and thinking about them all the time
7
5.2
So interested that you cannot stop watching or listening
1
4.5
Paying all your attention to something because you are very interested
1
2.1
Very interested and unable to stop paying attention
1
3.0
Stuck firmly in one place or unable to stop paying attention
Deeply focused on something and not aware of other things
Very interested and pleased so you cannot stop watching or listening
Antonyms
How Absorbed
Surface Forms
Morphology
glue + to
The adjective 'glued to' is a straightforward metaphorical extension of 'glue' (to stick) plus the preposition 'to' indicating what one is stuck to, so the meaning 'fixed/absorbed in watching or attending to something' is directly derivable from the parts. This 'stuck to' construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g., Spanish 'pegado a'), so an average B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
The phrase glued to comes from the image of something literally glued to another thing so it cannot move. People use that sticky picture to mean 'so interested you cannot stop watching or paying attention'.