Definition of "agglutination" []

• The act or process of agglutinating; adhesion of distinct parts. (noun)
• A clumped mass of material formed by agglutination. Also called agglutinate. (noun)
• Physiology The clumping together of red blood cells or bacteria, usually in response to a particular antibody. (noun)
• Linguistics The formation of words from morphemes that retain their original forms and meanings with little change during the combination process. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Thus, it will be observed, a number of parts of words are taken and thrown together, by a process which has been happily termed agglutination, so as to form one word, conveying a complicated idea."
• "They clump together cells bearing antigens (e.g., bacteria and [[erythrocyte]] s) in a process called '' 'agglutination' ''."
• "Fewer agencies are more of a mess than DHS, a Frankenstein-like agglutination of 170,000 federal employees from different bureaucratic and law-enforcement cultures, transformed into a hive of incompetence and cronyism under Bush."