From , from ad ("to") + glomerare ("to wind into a ball"), from glomus ("a ball"), akin to globus ("a ball").

• • (RP) IPA: /əˈɡlɒm(ə)ɹət/
  • (America) IPA: /əˈɡlɑm(ə)ɹət/
• Verb:
  • (RP) IPA: /əˈɡlɒm(ə)ˌɹeɪt/
  • (America) IPA: /əˈɡlɑ.mɚˌeɪt/

agglomerate

1. collected into a ball, heap, or mass

• agglomerated

agglomerate (plural agglomerates)

1. A collection or mass.
2. (geology, vulcanology) A mass of angular volcanic fragments united by heat; distinguished from conglomerate.
3. (meteorology) An ice cover of floe formed by the freezing together of various forms of ice.

• (collection or mass): agglomeration, collection, mass

agglomerate (agglomerates, present participle agglomerating; simple past and past participle agglomerated)

1. (ambitransitive) To wind or collect into a ball; hence, to gather into a mass or anything like a mass.
   • 1820, William Hazlitt, “Explanations—Conversation on the Drama with Coleridge” in Dramatic Essays London: Scott, 1895, p. 197,

     His [Jean Racine’s] tragedies are not poetry, are not passion, are not imagination: they are a parcel of set speeches, of epigrammatic conceits, of declamatory phrases, without any of the glow, and glancing rapidity, and principle of fusion in the mind of the poet, to agglomerate them into grandeur, or blend them into harmony.

   • 2009, Peter Campion, “Imperium”, in The Lions, University of Chicago Press, page 14:

     It feels like doing eighty on the freeway / as little towns agglomerate and blur:

2. (geography) To extend an urban area by contiguous development, so as to merge the built-up area of one or more central cities or settlements and their suburbs (thus creating an agglomeration).

• (collect into a ball) ball, ball up, bundle up, clew, conglobate, conglobe, globe, orb, wind
• (gather into a mass) amass, gather, gather up, merge, pile up; see also Thesaurus:pile up or Thesaurus:coalesce

• agglomeration
• agglomerative