cluster

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”), Dutch dialectal klister (“cluster”), Swedish kluster (“cluster”), Icelandic klasi (“cluster; bunch of grapes”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈklʌstə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈklʌstɚ/
• Rhymes: -ʌstə(r)

cluster (plural clusters)

1. A group or bunch of several discrete items that are close to each other.

   a cluster of islands

   • (Can we date this quote?) Spenser

     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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     As bees […] / Pour forth their populous youth about the hive / In clusters.

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     We loved him; but, like beasts / And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, / Who did hoot him out o' the city.

3. (astronomy) A group of galaxies or stars that appear near each other.

   The Pleiades cluster contains seven bright stars.

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.
8. (computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see block).
9. (statistics) A significant subset within a population.
10. (military) Set of bombs or mines.
11. (army) A small metal design that indicates that a medal has been awarded to the same person before.
12. (chemistry) An ensemble of bound atoms or molecules, intermediate in size between a molecule and a bulk solid.

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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Tennyson

     His sunny hair / Cluster'd about his temples, like a god's.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Foxe

     the princes of the country clustering together

   • 1997, Lynn Keller, Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, chapter 6, 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.

• culters, curlest, custrel, cutlers, relucts

Borrowed from English cluster.

• IPA^(key): /ˈklʏs.tər/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: clus‧ter
• Rhymes: -ʏstər

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

1. cluster
2. (astronomy) star cluster

   Synonyms: sterrencluster, sterrenhoop, sterrenzwerm

• sterrencluster

cluster m (plural clusters)

1. cluster

Borrowed from English cluster.

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈklɐs.teʁ/

cluster m (plural clusters)

1. (music) cluster (chord of three or more notes)
2. (computing) cluster (group of computers working concurrently)

cluster m (plural clusters or cluster)

1. cluster