conglomerate
Americannoun
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conglomerates
plural
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anything composed of heterogeneous materials or elements.
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a corporation consisting of a number of subsidiary companies or divisions in a variety of unrelated industries, usually as a result of merger or acquisition.
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Geology. a rock consisting of pebbles or the like embedded in a finer cementing material; consolidated gravel.
adjective
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gathered into a rounded mass; consisting of parts so gathered; clustered.
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consisting of heterogeneous parts or elements.
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of or relating to a corporate conglomerate.
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Geology. of the nature of a conglomerate.
verb (used with object)
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conglomerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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conglomerated,
past participle, past
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conglomerating
present participle
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to bring together into a cohering mass.
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to gather into a ball or rounded mass.
verb (used without object)
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conglomerates,
present (3rd person singular)
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conglomerated,
past participle, past
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conglomerating
present participle
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to collect or cluster together.
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(of a company) to become part of or merge with a conglomerate.
noun
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a thing composed of heterogeneous elements; mass
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any coarse-grained sedimentary rock consisting of rounded fragments of rock embedded in a finer matrix Compare agglomerate
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a large corporation consisting of a group of companies dealing in widely diversified goods, services, etc
verb
adjective
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made up of heterogeneous elements; massed
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(of sedimentary rocks) consisting of rounded fragments within a finer matrix
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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miniconglomeratenoun
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superconglomeratenoun
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deconglomerateverb
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conglomeraticadjective
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conglomeriticadjective
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pseudoconglomerateadjective
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unconglomeratedadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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conglomeratesimple
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conglomeratessimple
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have conglomeratedperfect
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has conglomeratedperfect
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am conglomeratingprogressive
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are conglomeratingprogressive
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is conglomeratingprogressive
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have been conglomeratingperfect progressive
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has been conglomeratingperfect progressive
Past
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conglomeratedsimple
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had conglomeratedperfect
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was conglomeratingprogressive
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were conglomeratingprogressive
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had been conglomeratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of conglomerate
1565–75; < Latin conglomerātus (past participle of conglomerāre ), equivalent to con- con- + glomer- (stem of glomus ) ball of yarn + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
A conglomerate is a group of things, especially companies, put together to form one. If you are rich enough to buy a TV network, a record company, several newspapers, and a radio station, you too can own a media conglomerate. The root of conglomerate is glomus, a Latin word for “ball.” So think of a conglomerate as a bunch of different things balled together. Before it came to describe giant corporations, a conglomerate was a rock formed from different kinds of minerals. Conglomerate can also be used as a verb — like when your media companies conglomerated successfully.
Vocabulary lists containing conglomerate
Power Prefix: con-
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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:
The conglomerate said it is seeking more than US$1.5 billion in damages for the “destruction of the company’s investments” in the country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
The conglomerate also owns Clayton Homes, a maker of manufactured homes, and other housing-related businesses.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026
Tapping loans from his insurers had been a calling card of the 66-year-old billionaire’s conglomerate for years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
Earlier this year, Japanese trading conglomerate and LNG operator Mitsubishi bought gas assets for $5.2 billion from private-market investors including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, RedBird Capital Partners and Aethon Energy Management.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
He met with executives from Columbia Broadcasting System and Philco in the United States and flew to Holland to make a pitch, fruitlessly, to the Dutch technology conglomerate Philips.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
His portfolio, taken together, suggests a particular interest in the invisible forces governing everyday life: particulates, sundown, industrial produce conglomerates.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
"We've been putting solar panels on our malls just to save on energy," Frederic DyBuncio, president and CEO of SM Investments Corp, told AFP, adding that the country's other conglomerates were doing the same.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
Companies rarely welcome activists, and Korea has historically been especially inhospitable—in part because of the sprawling, family-controlled conglomerates called chaebols that still dominate the market today.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
It’s so competitive that media conglomerates often tout the combined success of multiple brands to demonstrate dominance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
Self- worth tends to be narrowly defined by admission to a few highly selective universities and prestigious, high-paying jobs at conglomerates like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
"All of these are just in a kind of conglomerated business under Elon Musk's name."
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026
Late on Monday, Abu Dhabi-based conglomerated International Holding Co. said it will make a $381 million investment into Adani Enterprises.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 31, 2023
The former is supposed to lead to the latter, as it seemingly has for the five companies conglomerated under the intimidating acronym FAANG.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2021
I’ve written extensively elsewhere with co-authors about why it makes sense for media companies to break apart rather than stay conglomerated.
From Forbes ● Mar. 26, 2015
Eschewing diaper, you roll the Act round the royal infant; you roll it up and pin it in the conglomerated wisdom of the nation.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, July 24, 1841 by Various
Possible answers invoke myriad world-making methods, from titanic impacts to the gluing together of spaceborne hail, where the conglomerating force of gravity may battle disruptions from magnetic whirlpools that nascent worlds are thought to encounter.
From New York Times ● Jul. 23, 2021
“The Globes have exhibited some amount of prescience in conglomerating film and television,” said Matti Leshem, a movie producer and the chief executive of Protagonist, a Hollywood branding company.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2013
Maurice Greenberg, a Russian immigrant, started the Connecticut Leather Co. in Hartford in 1932 to sell supplies to shoemakers, but his sons Arnold and Leonard began conglomerating in the 1960s.
From Time Magazine Archive
In an era when most multinational firms have given up their old conglomerating ways, Jardines retains a panoply of seemingly unconnected businesses.
From Time Magazine Archive
In June the military chiefs at Washington were vainly doing all that military men could do to make something like the beginnings of an army out of the conglomerating mass.
From Captains of the Civil War; a chronicle of the blue and the gray by William Charles Henry Wood
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.
