cluster

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See also: Cluster and clúster

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
A cluster of mushrooms.
A star cluster

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English cluster, from Old English cluster, clyster (“cluster, bunch, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *klus-, *klas- (“to clump, lump together”) + Proto-Germanic *-þrą (instrumental suffix), related to Low German Kluuster (“cluster”), dialectal Dutch klister (“cluster”), Swedish kluster (“cluster”), Icelandic klasi (“cluster; bunch of grapes”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cluster (plural clusters)

  1. A group or bunch of several discrete items that are close to each other.
    a cluster of islands
    • 1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe”, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 1125540005:
      Her deeds were like great clusters of ripe grapes, / Which load the bunches of the fruitful vine.
    • 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 7, in The Dust of Conflict:
      Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs […] ,
    • 2011 December 29, Keith Jackson, “SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0”, in Daily Record:
      Charlie Mulgrew’s delicious deadball delivery was attacked by a cluster of green and white shirts at McGregor’s back post but Ledley got up higher and with more purpose than anyone else to thump a header home from five yards.
    • 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 206-7:
      Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.
    A cluster of flowers grew in the pot.
    A leukemia cluster has developed in the town.
  2. A number of individuals grouped together or collected in one place; a crowd; a mob.
  3. (astronomy) A group of galaxies or stars that appear near each other.
    The Pleiades cluster contains seven bright stars.
    • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, OCLC 246633669, PC, scene: Citadel:
      My fellow biotic: You have been selected to receive this transmission because of our shared plight. Few understand us, fewer tolerate us. We must stand together. We must build our own new world. Come. Join us in the Hawking Eta cluster. Only as one body can we right the wrongs done to our kind.
  4. (linguistics, education) A sequence of two or more words that occur in language with high frequency but are not idiomatic; a chunk, bundle, or lexical bundle.
    examples of clusters would include "in accordance with", "the results of" and "so far"
  5. (music) A secundal chord of three or more notes.
  6. (phonetics) A group of consonants.
    The word "scrub" begins with a cluster of three consonants.
  7. (computing) A group of computers that work together.
    • 2011, Fayez Gebali, Algorithms and Parallel Computing, page 60:
      The computers in the cluster communicate among themselves and among the shared memory.
  8. (computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see block).
  9. (statistics, cluster analysis) A subset of a population whose members are sufficiently similar to each other and distinct from others as to be considered a distinct group; such a grouping in a set of observed data that is statistically significant.
  10. (military) A set of bombs or mines released as part of the same blast.
  11. (army) A small metal design that indicates that a medal has been awarded to the same person before.
  12. (slang, euphemistic) A clusterfuck.
  13. (chemistry) An ensemble of bound atoms or molecules, intermediate in size between a molecule and a bulk solid.

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

a number of individuals grouped together or collected in one place; a crowd; a mob — See also translations at crowd,‎ mob
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb[edit]

cluster (third-person singular simple present clusters, present participle clustering, simple past and past participle clustered)

  1. (intransitive) To form a cluster or group.
    The children clustered around the puppy.
    • 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “Œnone”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], OCLC 3944791, page 54:
      [H]is sunny hair / Clustered about his temples like a God's: […]
    • 1563 March 30​, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], OCLC 64451939:
      the princes of the country […] clustering together
    • 1997, Lynn Keller, chapter 6, in Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 281:
      On the page, “Me” is irregular but—except for a prominent drawing of a two-toned hieroglyphic eye—not radically unusual: the lines are consistently left-justified; their length varies from one to a dozen syllables; they cluster in stanzalike units anywhere from one to six lines long that are separated by consistent spaces.
  2. (transitive) To collect into clusters.
  3. (transitive) To cover with clusters.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English cluster.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cluster f or m or m (plural clusters, diminutive clustertje n)

  1. cluster
  2. (astronomy) star cluster
    Synonyms: sterrencluster, sterrenhoop, sterrenzwerm

Derived terms[edit]

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English cluster.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cluster m (plural clusters)

  1. cluster

Portuguese[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English cluster.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

cluster m (plural clusters)

  1. cluster (group or bunch of similar elements)
  2. (economics) industrial cluster
  3. (music) cluster (chord of three or more notes)
  4. (computing) cluster (group of computers working concurrently)

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

cluster m (plural clusters or cluster)

  1. Alternative spelling of clúster
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