Definition

1. Verb:

   • To clump or stick together: To cause particles, cells, or other small components to adhere into a mass or cluster, often through a sticky substance.
   • To combine morphemes in language: In linguistics, to form words by stringing together distinct morphemes (the smallest units of meaning) without significantly altering their form.

2. Adjective:

   • United as if by glue: Describing things that are stuck or bonded together.

Usage and Examples

• Verb (To clump together):

  • The laboratory test showed that the antibodies caused the red blood cells to agglutinate.
  • If you don't stir the mixture, the particles will agglutinate at the bottom.

• Verb (Linguistics: To combine morphemes):

  • Languages like Turkish and Finnish agglutinate extensively, creating long words from many morphemes.
  • The word "un-friend-li-ness" in English is an example of how we can agglutinate prefixes and suffixes to a root.

• Adjective:

  • Under the microscope, we observed an agglutinate mass of bacteria.
  • The agglutinate structure was surprisingly strong.

Advanced Usage

• Agglutination (Noun): The process or result of agglutinating.

  • The agglutination of platelets is a key step in blood clotting.
  • Linguists study agglutination to understand how different languages build words.

• Agglutinative (Adjective): Describing a language that primarily uses agglutination.

  • Japanese is an agglutinative language; verb endings change to express tense, politeness, and other meanings.

Variants and Related Words

• Agglutination (n): The act or process of uniting or the state of being united into a clump or mass. Also, the formation of words from morphemes.
• Agglutinative (adj): Tending to agglutinate. Specifically used to describe languages that form words by agglutination.
• Agglutinogen (n): A substance that stimulates the production of an agglutinin, often used in immunology.

Synonyms

• Verb (clump): Clot, coalesce, cluster, conglomerate.
• Verb (stick): Adhere, bind, glue, cement.
• Adjective: Adherent, glued, bonded, stuck.

Antonyms

• Verb: Disperse, scatter, separate, dissolve.
• Adjective: Separate, detached, loose, disconnected.

Adjective

1. united as if by glue

Verb

1. clump together; as of bacteria, red blood cells, etc.
2. string together (morphemes in an agglutinating language)