agglutination

American  

[uh-gloot-n-ey-shuhn] / əˌglut nˈeɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act or process of uniting by glue or other tenacious substance.

2. the state of being thus united; adhesion of parts.

3. that which is united; a mass or group cemented together.

4. Immunology. the clumping of bacteria, red blood cells, or other cells, due to the introduction of an antibody.

5. Linguistics. a process of word formation in which morphemes, each having one relatively constant shape, are combined without fusion or morphophonemic change, and in which each grammatical category is typically represented by a single morpheme in the resulting word, especially such a process involving the addition of one or more affixes to a base, as in Turkish, in which ev means “house,” ev-den means “from a house,” and ev-ler-den means “from houses.”

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agglutination British  

/ əˌɡluːtɪˈneɪʃən /

noun

1. the act or process of agglutinating

2. the condition of being agglutinated; adhesion

3. a united mass or group of parts

4. chem the formation of clumps of particles in a suspension

5. biochem proteinaceous particles, such as blood cells and bacteria, that form clumps in antibody–antigen reactions

6. immunol the formation of a mass of particles, such as erythrocytes, by the action of antibodies

7. linguistics the building up of words from component morphemes in such a way that these undergo little or no change of form or meaning in the process of combination

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agglutination Scientific  

/ ə-glo̅o̅t′n-ā′shən /

1. The clumping together of biologic material, such as red blood cells or bacteria, that is suspended in liquid, usually in response to a particular antibody.

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Other Word Forms

• antiagglutination adjective
• interagglutination noun

Etymology

Origin of agglutination

First recorded in 1535–45; agglutinate + -ion

Example Sentences

By 1989, The Times reported, Davis had “reshaped Gulf & Western from a ragtag agglutination of about 100 businesses to a thriving corporation focused in entertainment, publishing and finance.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 10, 2023

Maternal anti-Rh antibodies may cross the placenta and enter the fetal bloodstream, causing agglutination and hemolysis of fetal erythrocytes.

From Textbooks • Jun. 19, 2013

The bacteria became clumped in a process called agglutination.

From Textbooks • Jun. 19, 2013

Such training does not teach students to think scientifically for "the collection of credits in courses of oddments" can be gained by "agglutination of the tail to a wooden bench."

From Time Magazine Archive

They were not arrested, and did not become traditional or national, before those who spoke them had learnt to appreciate the advantage of agglutination.

From Lectures on The Science of Language by Müller, Max