cluster

American  

[kluhs-ter] / ˈklʌs tər /

noun

1. a number of things of the same kind, growing or held together; a bunch.

   a cluster of grapes.

2. a group of things or persons close together.

   There was a cluster of tourists at the gate.

3. U.S. Army. a small metal design placed on a ribbon representing an awarded medal to indicate that the same medal has been awarded again.

   oak-leaf cluster.

4. Phonetics. a succession of two or more contiguous consonants in an utterance, as the str- cluster of strap.

5. Astronomy. a group of neighboring stars, held together by mutual gravitation, that have essentially the same age and composition and thus supposedly a common origin.

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verb (used with object)

1. to gather into a cluster or clusters.

2. to furnish or cover with clusters.

verb (used without object)

1. to form a cluster or clusters.

   The people clustered around to watch.

   Synonyms:

   bunch, crowd, throng, gather, group

cluster British  

/ ˈklʌstə /

noun

1. a number of things growing, fastened, or occurring close together

2. a number of persons or things grouped together

3. military a metal insignia worn on a medal ribbon to indicate a second award or a higher class of a decoration or order

4. military

   1. a group of bombs dropped in one stick, esp fragmentation and incendiary bombs

   2. the basic unit of mines used in laying a minefield

5. astronomy an aggregation of stars or galaxies moving together through space

6. a group of two or more consecutive vowels or consonants

7. statistics a naturally occurring subgroup of a population used in stratified sampling

8. chem

   1. a chemical compound or molecule containing groups of metal atoms joined by metal-to-metal bonds

   2. the group of linked metal atoms present

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verb

1. to gather or be gathered in clusters

Other Word Forms

• clustered adjective
• clusteringly adverb
• clustery adjective
• intercluster adjective
• subcluster noun
• unclustered adjective
• unclustering adjective

Etymology

Origin of cluster

before 900; Middle English; Old English cluster, clyster bunch; cognate with Low German kluster

Example Sentences

The researchers used computing resources from the Texas Advanced Computing Centre at the University of Texas at Austin and the Trillium supercomputing cluster at SciNet at the University of Toronto.

From Science Daily

Much of that money will flow back to Nvidia, whose engineers are working with Reflection to build a giant cluster of GPUs that the startup will use to train its models.

From The Wall Street Journal

“The more, the merrier,” says Vincent Day, who has separate clusters of close friends, some revolving around music, some around work, others from his kids’ school and a half-dozen from high school.

From The Wall Street Journal

These signals come from the carotid bodies, small clusters of cells in the neck near the carotid artery that monitor oxygen levels in the blood.

From Science Daily

Taipei responded to the tariffs with a Golden Plan that culminated in a $500 billion deal, including the export of high-tech industrial clusters to the U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• array
• assemblage
• band
• batch
• bunch
• bundle
• chunk
• clump
• collection
• knot