cluster
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: klŭsˈ-tər
ipa: /ˈklʌstə/
ipa: /ˈklʌstɚ/
rhymes: -ʌstə(ɹ)
Forms: form: clusters
form: clustering
form: clustered
form: clustered
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: cluster
form: cluster
form: clustered
form: cluster
form: clusterest
form: clustered
form: clusteredst
form: clusters
form: clustereth
form: clustered
form: cluster
form: clustered
form: cluster
form: clustered
form: cluster
form: -
form: clustering
form: clustered
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English cluster (“bunch, cluster, spray; compact body or mass, ball”) [and other forms], from Old English cluster, clyster (“cluster, bunch, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *klas-, *klus- (“to clump, lump together”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up; to clench; to amass”)) + *-þrą (suffix forming nouns denoting an instrument or tool). The English word is probably a doublet of clot.
The verb is derived from the noun.
Cognates
* Dutch klister (“cluster”) (dialectal)
* Icelandic klasi (“cluster; bunch of grapes”)
* Low German Kluuster (“cluster”)
* Swedish kluster (“cluster”)
Senses: examples: text: The consciousness of such an action will give her features a nobler life on this illustrious day, than all the jewels that can hang in her hair or can be clustered in her bosom.
ref: 1712 February 17 (Gregorian calendar), [Richard Steele], “WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 294; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume III, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 294:
text: Not less the bee would range her cells, / The furzy prickle fire the dells, / The foxglove cluster dappled bells.
ref: 1833–1834 (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “The Two Voices”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 121:
text: The queen-bee of the children-swarm, the wise little Louise, sate herself down at the window, and four other little heads clustered themselves about her, fervent and inquisitive, and almost pushing her away in their impatient zeal to get a peep at the arrival.
ref: 1843, Fredrika Bremer, The Home: Or, Family Cares and Family Joys, page 10:
qualifier: chiefly passive voice
glosses: To collect (animals, people, objects, data points, etc) into clusters (noun sense 1).
examples: text: The sea is clustered with islands.
qualifier: chiefly passive voice
glosses: To cover (with clusters); to scatter or strew in clusters (within); to distribute (objects) within such that they form clusters.
examples: text: The children clustered around the puppy.
text: [T]he fruite cluſtereth togyther lyke to ſmal grapes, which in the beginning is greene, and afterwarde when it is ripe, al blacke.
ref: 1578, Rembert Dodoens, “Of Brionie”, in Henry Lyte, transl., A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes: […], London [actually Antwerp]: […] [Hendrik van der Loe for] Gerard Dewes, […], →OCLC, page 380:
text: VVoes cluſter; rare are ſolitary VVoes; / They love a Train; they tread each other's Heel: […]
ref: 1742, [Edward Young], “Night the Third. Narcissa. […]”, in The Complaint: Or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and T. Cooper, […], →OCLC, page 6:
text: I met a little cottage girl, / She was eight years old, she said; / Her hair was thick with many a curl / That cluster'd round her head.
ref: 1798, [William Wordsworth], “We Are Seven”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], →OCLC, stanza 2, page 110:
text: Oh grief to think, that grapes of gall / Should cluster round thine healthiest shoot!
ref: 1827, [John Keble], “Thursday before Easter”, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume I, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J. Parker; and C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington, […], →OCLC, stanza 4, page 134:
text: [H]is sunny hair / Clustered about his temples like a God's: […]
ref: 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “Œnone”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 54:
text: The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly, / Goldenkernelled, goldencored, / Sunset-ripened above on the tree.
ref: 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Hesperides”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza IV, page 106:
text: While their soft and humid kisses / To her conscious lips they press, / Like a spiral sunbeam floating, / Clustereth every golden tress; […]
ref: 1853 August, Fanny Green, “Spirit Guests”, in The Journal of Progress; […], volume II, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Harmonial Association, →OCLC, page 12, column 2:
text: It is Thou, Lord, who hast put far from us these sorrows, who still sparest every member of our household, the olive-branches round about our table, and the vine that clustereth on the walls of our house.
ref: 1854, Barton Bouchier, “Thursday Morning”, in The Ark in the House: Or, A Series of Family Prayers for a Month; with Prayers for Special Occasions, London: John Farquhar Shaw, […], →OCLC, page 205:
text: Around the little bud clustereth volumes of high and pure thoughts.
ref: 1855, Charles Linton, chapter XV, in The Healing of the Nations. […], New York, N.Y.: Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge, →OCLC, paragraph 156, page 244:
text: All that is hard and harsh, and graceless in nature clustereth around her.
ref: 1864 July 3, Ada Clare, The “Blue Stocking”; reproduced in “Ada Clare (1836–1874)”, in Ida Rae Egli, editor, No Rooms of Their Own: Women Writers of Early California, Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books in association with Rick Heide, 1992, →ISBN, page 326:
text: On the page, "Me" [a poem by Rachel Blau DuPlessis] 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.
ref: 1997, Lynn Keller, “Grand Collage Out of Bounds: Feminist Serial Poems by Beverly Dahlen and Rachel Blau DuPlessis”, in Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 281:
glosses: To form a cluster or group; to assemble, to gather.
Synonyms: constellate
Derived terms: word: clusterability
word: clusterable
word: clustered
word: clusterer
word: clustering
word: miscluster
word: recluster