cluster

American  

[kluhs-ter] / ˈklʌs tər /

noun

clusters plural

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)

clusters, present (3rd person singular) clustered, past participle, past clustering present participle

1. to gather into a cluster or clusters.

2. to furnish or cover with clusters.

verb (used without object)

clusters, present (3rd person singular) clustered, past participle, past clustering present participle

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

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• clusters
  plural

Participles

• clustering
  present
• clustered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• cluster
  simple
• clusters
  simple
• have clustered
  perfect
• has clustered
  perfect
• am clustering
  progressive
• are clustering
  progressive
• is clustering
  progressive
• have been clustering
  perfect progressive
• has been clustering
  perfect progressive

Past

• clustered
  simple
• had clustered
  perfect
• was clustering
  progressive
• were clustering
  progressive
• had been clustering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will cluster
  simple
• will have clustered
  perfect
• will be clustering
  progressive
• will have been clustering
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of cluster

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

Explanation

A cluster is a small group of people or things. When you and your friends huddle awkwardly around the snack table at a party, whispering and trying to muster enough nerve to hit the dance floor, you’ve formed a cluster. Cluster comes to us from the Old English word clyster, meaning bunch. Nowadays, you can use cluster as either a noun or a verb. When we were kids, we would stand in a cluster (noun) on the street corner, eagerly awaiting the appearance of the Good Humor truck every afternoon. Then we would cluster (verb) eagerly around the driver, demanding ice cream. Virtually anything can form a cluster — flowers, cells, stars, human beings, and even events.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cluster clusters clustered clustering

When I walked in, the only immediate clue that the doctor there had just won a much-contested congressional primary was a small cluster of campaign posters bearing his name behind the check-in desk.

From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026

Distinctiveness - "That could be something like 'what would make a face stand out in a crowd?' AI faces do tend to cluster towards the average. So they look a bit more generic."

From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026

SK Hynix said the newly raised capital from its offering would be used to help fund investments in a new memory chip-making cluster and an advanced chip-packaging site in South Korea.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Although woodlice commonly cluster together to conserve moisture, scientists had never documented coordinated movement on this scale.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 6, 2026

The cluster of buildings all had stacked-tile roofs that sloped steeply to the sky.

From "A Wish in the Dark" by Christina Soontornvat

Similarly, officials with the public health department will look for clusters of cases that may indicate transmission occurring in California.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

Professor Keith Walters from the university said the research suggested where slugs were more likely to show up, in particular how slug clusters re-established themselves after soil was waterlogged.

From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026

NGC 6426 is estimated to be around 13 billion years old, making it one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026

This image is part of a Hubble Treasury program that is surveying approximately half of the Milky Way's known globular clusters.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026

Main Street continued westward between two mountains, leading to clusters of miners’ houses we called Middletown and Frog Level.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

Cardiovascular conditions such as high cholesterol and hypertension frequently clustered together, while behaviors like smoking and drinking also tended to occur as groups.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026

“What’s interesting about Snap is that the workforce was largely clustered on the Westside, and you could see almost immediate effects in Venice and Santa Monica within months of the IPO,” Habibi said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026

When respondents were asked what constituted a middle-class income, answers clustered in the range of $65,000 to $135,000 per household.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

“Historically, when both the NDX and SPX trigger a bearish outside week at the same time, weakness is likely to persist over the following two weeks but with mixed yet clustered results,” said Citi.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026

Most of the other students are clustered in the hallway, talking and laughing.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

The algorithm rates how alike two faces are, a higher percentage "clustering" means more facial resemblance.

From BBC ● May 1, 2026

The clustering of short positions presents “a dormant risk of a bullish short-covering” although “it may require a bullish catalyst to ignite upside potential,” he adds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

In addition to clustering Rubisco, plants must also efficiently deliver carbon dioxide to the enzyme.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 11, 2026

These antibodies work by grabbing and clustering several immune cell receptors at once, which increases the strength of the signal that tells a T cell to attack cancer.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 9, 2026

It was joined by another, and then another, until there were seven of them, clustering around his feet.

From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell

Related Words

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