[f. L. agglomerāt- ppl. stem of agglomerā-re, f. ag- = ad- to + glomerā-re to wind or gather into a ball; f. glomus -er-is a clew, clue, or ball. Cf. mod. Fr. agglomérer, which may be immed. source of the Eng.]
† 1. trans. To wind or roll into a ball. Obs.
1692. Coles, Agglomerate, to rowl together.
1721. Bailey, Agglomerate, to roll or wind up into a bottom. [Whence in Johnson.]
2. trans. To gather together in a rounded mass, to combine mechanically without any adaptation of parts; to cluster or heap together.
1684. trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., VI. 229. The Bloud is eventilated, and the hot particles agglomerated.
1751. Johnson, Rambl., 108, ¶ 5. If we would know the amount of moments, we must agglomerate them into days and weeks.
1873. Farrar, Fam. Speech, ii. 44. To agglomerate a number of words without inflection or synthesis.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th C., II. ix. 636. Working men … were agglomerated by thousands in great towns.
1879. G. Gladstone, in Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 18/1. It cannot be put into the furnace without being first agglomerated into lumps.
3. intr. To collect in a mass. lit. and fig.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 766. The hard agglomerating salts, The spoil of ages, would impervious choke Their secret channels.
1847. J. Wilson, Chr. North, I. 257. The heart and the imagination can agglomerate around them.
1869. in Eng. Mech., 7 May, 147/3. The heated stratum of air agglomerates to an ‘igneous globe.’
