clutter

Etymology

From Middle English cloteren (“to form clots; coagulate; heap on”), from clot (“clot”), equivalent to clot + -er (frequentative suffix). Compare Welsh cludair (“heap, pile”), cludeirio (“to heap”).

noun

1. (uncountable) A confused disordered jumble of things.
   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, pages 206–7
2. (uncountable) Background echoes, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
3. (countable) Alternative form of clowder (“collective noun for cats”).
   Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification. 2008, John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories, Introduction
4. (obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
   October 14 1718, John Arbuthnot, letter to Jonathan Swift I hardly heard a word of news or politicks, except a little clutter about sending some impertinent presidents du parliament to prison
   It was then you might have heard a clutter: pots, pans and pitchers, mugs, jugs and jordens, all put themselves in motion at once[…] 1835, William Cobbett, John Morgan Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett, Selections from Cobbett's political works, volume 1, page 33
5. (mathematics) A Sperner system.

verb

1. To fill something with clutter.
   That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters. 2013-05-25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To clot or coagulate, like blood.
3. To make a confused noise; to bustle.
4. To utter words hurriedly, especially (but not exclusively) as a speech disorder (compare cluttering).