agglomeration

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a mass or collection of different things gathered or clustered together

   The attic contained an untidy agglomeration of trunks, tools, and broken furniture.

2. 2
   noun

   the process of gathering or sticking together into a mass

   Moisture caused the agglomeration of the powder into hard lumps.

3. 3
   noun

   a continuously built-up urban area formed from a city and its surrounding settlements

   The rail network serves the entire urban agglomeration rather than the central city alone.

From Latin agglomeratio, from agglomerare ("to form into a ball or gather into a mass"), combining ad- ("to") with glomus, genitive glomeris ("ball of yarn"). The urban sense extends the image to adjoining settlements joined into one mass.

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