Other forms: clusters
A cluster is a tight group of things close together. A cluster of houses, a cluster of cases, cluster together.
In public health a cluster of cases is what starts an investigation, and most turn out to be chance, since randomness produces clumps and people expect it to produce spreading. In computing, a cluster is machines working as one.
1nounclusterA tight group of things close together.
“A cluster of small houses stood around the church at the top of the hill.”
cluster is a group.
Middle English cluster means a bunch, from Old English clyster.
Proto-Indo-European
*gel-
Old English
clyster
Middle English
cluster
English, today
cluster
Built from
From Middle English cluster, from Old English clyster. The noun is derived from Middle English cluster (“bunch, cluster, spray; compact body or mass, ball”)closter, clostre, clouster, clowster, clustre, clustyr, from Old English cluster, clyster (“cluster, bunch, branch”), from Proto-Germanic klas-, klus- (“to clump, lump together”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European gel- (“to ball up; to clench; to amass”)) + -þrą. The English word is probably a a doublet of clot. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA