conglomeration

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a mixed mass or collection made up of many different things or previously separate parts

   The exhibition was a curious conglomeration of scientific instruments, maps, and family relics.

2. 2
   noun

   the act or process of gathering separate things into a mass, or the state produced by that process

   Rapid conglomeration turned the scattered firms into a few large corporate groups.

From Late Latin conglomeratio, from conglomerare, 'to roll or gather into a ball,' built from con-, 'together,' + glomus, 'ball or rounded mass.' The physical idea of parts rolled together broadened to any heterogeneous collection.

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