[ad. L. agglomerātiōn-em, n. of action f. agglomerā-re: see AGGLOMERATE v. Cf. mod.Fr. agglomération, perh. the immed. source of the Eng.]
1. The action of collecting in a mass, or of heaping together.
1774. T. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, II. 223 (T.). An excessive agglomeration of turrets … is one of the characteristick marks of the florid mode of architecture.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VII. lix. 218. The Jews have grown into a nation by the agglomeration of the worst of men from all quarters.
1874. Helps, Soc. Press., ii. 18. The agglomeration of too many people on one spot of ground.
2. A mass formed by mere mechanical union or approximation; an unmethodical assemblage; a clustering or cluster.
1833. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), III. 192. Formless, blundering Agglomerations.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, xiii. 215. It was an agglomeration of forbidding-looking granite houses.
1866. Liddon, Bampt. Lect., viii. (1875), 494. Society is an agglomeration of self-loving beings.
1869. Dunkin, Midn. Sky, 181. Orion is perhaps the finest agglomeration of stars to be found in any portion of the heavens.
