agglutinate
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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to unite or cause to adhere, as with glue.
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Immunology. to clump or cause to clump, as bacteria or blood platelets.
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Linguistics. to form by agglutination.
adjective
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united by or as by glue.
verb
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to adhere or cause to adhere, as with glue
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linguistics to combine or be combined by agglutination
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(tr) to cause (bacteria, red blood cells, etc) to clump together
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of agglutinate
1535–45; < Latin agglūtinātus (past participle of agglūtināre ), equivalent to ag- ag- + glūtin- (stem of glūten glue) + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
When things get stuck or clumped together, they agglutinate. In biology, red blood cells are said to agglutinate when they adhere to each other, forming a mass of cells. There's glue at the heart of agglutinate — it comes from the Latin agglutinare, "fasten with glue." Microbiologists use this word to describe the behavior of cells and particles. Linguistics experts also use this verb: when words or sounds agglutinate, they are strung together to form more complex compound words. In English, one example is shamelessness, which agglutinates shame, less, and ness.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It urges those who work in it to agglutinate and machinate.
From Economist ● Oct. 27, 2016
Thus, there was something in the serum of immune individuals that could specifically bind to and agglutinate bacteria.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 19, 2013
The European Cup is the great promise, the hope, the agglutinate, the objective into which all else is subsumed.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 9, 2013
These refer them to the class of agglutinate tongues, i.e. tongues wherein the inflections can be shown to consist of separate words more or legs incorporated or amalgamated with the roots which they modify.
For, gentlemen, there were two kinds of blood on that laboratory floor, and they do not agglutinate.
From The Dream Doctor by Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin) Reeve
The agglutinated heads represent “all her children,” she added — but also perhaps “her other selves.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2022
That description applies to far more than one foram… The new squatter has a stark difference from Hospitella – its test is agglutinated, or composed of small particles stuck together.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 12, 2013
Yet for millennia, these bulky lawn mowers have entranced humans with the agglutinated hair that makes up their horns.
From Time ● Jun. 11, 2011
Studies by pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche and the Zoological Society of London have reported no medicinal value in rhino horn, which, like fingernails, is composed of agglutinated hair and contains proteins like keratin.
From Time ● Jun. 11, 2011
All that is only sensation, if you will; but merely as the agglutinated molecules of cement and of stone are a palace.
From The Mind and the Brain Being the Authorised Translation of L'Âme et le Corps by Alfred Binet
Thus, while the Abkhasian of group 1 is still at the agglutinating, the Lesghian of group 2 has fairly reached the inflecting stage, and the Georgian seems still to waver between the two.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 7 "Geoponici" to "Germany" by Various
The Ober-Deutsch was fuller and fonder of agglutinating words together, although it was not so soft in its sounds.
From Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Henry Nelson Coleridge
Speech, almost everywhere in the agglutinating state, generally with suffixes.
From Man, Past and Present by Alfred Court Haddon
From a thousand miles around, the devils were mustering for their prey, agglutinating, in order that the meal of one might become the meal of all.
From Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 by Various
Confirm these results by testing the organisms isolated against specific agglutinating sera obtained from experimentally inoculated animals.
From The Elements of Bacteriological Technique A Laboratory Guide for Medical, Dental, and Technical Students. Second Edition Rewritten and Enlarged. by J. W. H. (John William Henry) Eyre
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
