cluster

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English cluster (“bunch, cluster, spray; compact body or mass, ball”) [and other forms], from Old English cluster, clyster (“cluster, bunch, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *klas-, *klus- (“to clump, lump together”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up; to clench; to amass”)) + *-þrą (suffix forming nouns denoting an instrument or tool). The English word is probably a doublet of clot. The verb is derived from the noun. cognates * Dutch klister (“cluster”) (dialectal) * Icelandic klasi (“cluster; bunch of grapes”) * Low German Kluuster (“cluster”) * Swedish kluster (“cluster”)

noun

1. A bunch or group of several discrete items that are close to each other.
   1. (astronomy) A group of galaxies, nebulae, or stars that appear to the naked eye to be near each other.
      (of galaxies):
      (of stars):
      The Pleiades cluster contains seven bright stars.
      My fellow biotic: You have been selected to receive this transmission because of our shared plight. Few understand us, fewer tolerate us. We must stand together. We must build our own new world. Come. Join us in the Hawking Eta cluster. Only as one body can we right the wrongs done to our kind. 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City, Calif.: BioWare/Electronic Arts, PC, scene: Citadel
   2. (chemistry) An ensemble of bound atoms (especially of a metal) or molecules, intermediate in size between a molecule and a bulk solid.
   3. (computing)
      1. A group of computers that work together.
         A computer cluster is a collection of two or more computers used to execute a given problem or section. Typically, in a computer cluster, the interconnection network tying the computers together is a local area network (LAN). […] The computers in the cluster communicate among themselves and among the shared memory. 2011, Fayez Gebali, “Parallel Computers”, in Algorithms and Parallel Computing (Wiley Series on Parallel Computing and Distributed Computing; 82), Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, section 3.7 (Cluster Computing), page 60
      2. A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see block (noun)).
   4. (epidemiology) A group of cases of the same disease occurring around the same place or time.
      A leukemia cluster has developed in the town.
   5. (linguistics) Synonym of lexical bundle (“a sequence of two or more words that occur in a language with high frequency but are not idiomatic”)
      examples of clusters would include in accordance with, so far, and the results of
   6. (military)
      1. A set of bombs or mines released as part of the same blast.
      2. (US) In full oak leaf cluster: a small bronze or silver device shaped like a twig of oak leaves and acorns which is worn on a ribbon to indicate that the wearer has been conferred the same award or decoration before; an oakleaf.
   7. (music) A secundal chord of three or more notes.
   8. (phonetics) A pronounceable group of consonants that occur together.
      The word scrub begins with a cluster of three consonants.
   9. (statistics) In cluster analysis: a subset of a population whose members are sufficiently similar to each other and distinct from others as to be considered a separate group; also, such a grouping in a set of observed data that is statistically significant.
2. A number of individuals (animals or people) collected in one place or grouped together; a crowd, a mob, a swarm.
   Earless ghost swift moths become "invisible" to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. 2013 May–June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, New Haven, Conn.: Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2013-06-16, pages 206–207
3. (slang) Euphemistic form of clusterfuck (“a chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong”).

verb

1. (transitive, chiefly passive)
   1. To collect (animals, people, or objects) into clusters (noun sense 1).
   2. To cover (with clusters); to scatter or strew in clusters (within); to distribute (objects) within such that they form clusters.
      The sea is clustered with islands.
2. (intransitive)
   1. To form a cluster or group; to assemble, to gather.
      The children clustered around the puppy.
      [T]he fruite cluſtereth togyther lyke to ſmal grapes, which in the beginning is greene, and afterwarde when it is ripe, al blacke. 1578, Rembert Dodoens, “Of Brionie”, in Henry Lyte, transl., A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes:[…], London [actually Antwerp]: […] [Hendrik van der Loe for] Gerard Dewes,[…], →OCLC, page 380
      While their soft and humid kisses / To her conscious lips they press, / Like a spiral sunbeam floating, / Clustereth every golden tress; […] 1853 August, Fanny Green, “Spirit Guests”, in The Journal of Progress;[…], volume II, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Harmonial Association, →OCLC, page 12, column 2
      It is Thou, Lord, who hast put far from us these sorrows, who still sparest every member of our household, the olive-branches round about our table, and the vine that clustereth on the walls of our house. 1854, Barton Bouchier, “Thursday Morning”, in The Ark in the House: Or, A Series of Family Prayers for a Month; with Prayers for Special Occasions, London: John Farquhar Shaw,[…], →OCLC, page 205
      Around the little bud clustereth volumes of high and pure thoughts. 1855, Charles Linton, chapter XV, in The Healing of the Nations.[…], New York, N.Y.: Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge, →OCLC, paragraph 156, page 244
      All that is hard and harsh, and graceless in nature clustereth around her. 3 July 1864, Ada Clare, The “Blue Stocking”; reproduced in “Ada Clare (1836–1874)”, in Ida Rae Egli, editor, No Rooms of Their Own: Women Writers of Early California, Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books in association with Rick Heide, 1992, page 326
      On the page, "Me" [a poem by Rachel Blau DuPlessis] is irregular but—except for a prominent drawing of a two-toned hieroglyphic eye—not radically unusual: the lines are consistently left-justified; their length varies from one to a dozen syllables; they cluster in stanzalike units anywhere from one to six lines long that are separated by consistent spaces. 1997, Lynn Keller, “Grand Collage Out of Bounds: Feminist Serial Poems by Beverly Dahlen and Rachel Blau DuPlessis”, in Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, page 281