cluster
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A number of people collected in one place or grouped together.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kluhsterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈklʌstɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A number of individuals (animals or people) collected in one place or grouped together; a crowd, a mob, a swarm.
computing
A group of computers that work together.
A bunch or group of several discrete items that are close to each other.
verb
To cover (with clusters); to scatter or strew in clusters (within); to distribute (objects) within such that they form clusters.
To collect (animals, people, objects, data points, etc) into clusters (noun noun, sense 1).
intransitive
To form a cluster or group; to assemble, to gather.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A number of individuals (animals or people) collected in one place or grouped together; a crowd, a mob, a swarm.
Used this way, cluster is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use cluster
- “A cluster of bees flew toward the sweet-smelling flowers in the garden.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A grouping of a number of similar things.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Bomb consisting of a canister that is dropped from a plane and that opens to release a cluster of bomblets (usually fragmentation bombs) over a wide area.
One of the smaller bombs that are released from a cluster bomb.
A painful recurring headache associated with the release of histamine from cells.
Bellflower of Europe to temperate Asia having dense spikes of violet-blue to white flowers.
Clusters of several short stems each having 2 broad leaves and 2-4 drooping brownish to greenish flowers with pouches mottled with purple.
Densely hairy perennial having mostly triangular basal leaves and rose-purple flowers in panicled clusters.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.