conglomerate
/kənˈɡlɑ.mɚ.ət/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.39 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cluster of heterogeneous things.
noun
A corporation formed by the combination of several smaller corporations whose activities are unrelated to the corporation's primary activity.
adj
Example Sentences
- "They [miracles in the canonical gospels] are held, too, together by his [Jesus Christ's] strong and central personality, which does not leave them a conglomerate of marvellous anecdotes accidentally heaped together, but parts of a great organic whole, of which every part is in vital coherence with every other."
- "The 2017 list includes 80 financial conglomerates with the head of group located in the European Union or European Economic Area, one financial conglomerate with the head of group in Switzerland, one in Bermuda, and two in the United States."
- "When sandstone is coarse-grained, it is usually called grit. If the grains are rounded, and large enough to be called pebbles, it becomes a conglomerate, or pudding-stone, which may consist of pieces of one or of many different kinds of rock. A conglomerate, therefore, is simply gravel bound together by a cement."
- "Calcareous lias, slate, and trap are still to be found there, rising from layers of conglomerate like teeth out of a gum. But the pickaxe has broken up and levelled those bristling, rugged peaks which were once the homes of the eagles."
- "Everywhere in the river appeared a very remarkable conglomerate, and like the slate in exhibiting all the stages of formation. The matrix was the blue clay of the bank, the rubble was the gravel of the bottom."
- "The Middle Voltaian lies unconformably on the Lower Voltaian with a basal conglomerate that can be correlated with conglomerates of the Buem Formation. Both sets of conglomerates have been interpreted as tillites, possibly equivalent to the Infracambrian tillites of the Rokelide–Mauritanide belt west of the craton […] and in the Taoudeni Basin[…]."
Etymology
First attested in the second part of the 16ᵗʰ century; from Latin conglomerātus, perfect passive participle of conglomerō (“to pile into a heap, to roll together”) (see -ate (Etymology 1, 2 and 3)), from con- (prefix indicating a being or bringing together of several objects) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“beside, by, near, with”)) + glomerāre (from glomerō (“to pile into a heap, to make into a ball, glomerate”), from glomus (“ball of thread; ball-shaped mass”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to form into a ball; ball”)).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kənˈɡlɑ.mɚ.ət/
- British English: /kənˈɡlɒm.(ə.)ɹɪt/
Usage
Inflected Forms
conglomerates (plural)
more conglomerate (comparative)
most conglomerate (superlative)
conglomerates (present, singular)
conglomerating (participle, present)
conglomerated (participle, past)
conglomerated (past)