clustering

Pluralclusterings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A grouping of several similar things that appear close together.

   The clustering of small shops along the street draws weekend crowds.

   Researchers noted a clustering of cases in the same neighborhood.

   Similarconcentration, grouping, bunching

   Oppositedispersal, scattering

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of cluster.

   Storm clouds are clustering over the mountains.

   Investors began clustering around the new technology.

   Note

   The verb behind it works in both directions. It is transitive when someone groups things or strews them in clusters, and intransitive when things gather on their own. The same -ing form serves progressive tenses ("are clustering") and gerund positions, where it acts as a noun ("clustering customers revealed..."). Only the transitive use takes a direct object.

   The software is clustering the data points by similarity.

   Clustering customers by purchase history revealed three distinct groups.

3. 3
   adjective

   Tending to come together and form a cluster.

   The clustering symptoms pointed to a single underlying cause.

   Clustering galaxies form vast structures across space.

   Note

   The adjective goes back at least to Shakespeare's The Tempest, written 1610–1611, where "clust'ring filberts" appear among wild foods on offer. The apostrophe marks a syllable dropped for the meter. It stands before its noun and has no comparative: things are clustering or not, never more clustering. That sets it apart from the verb form, which describes an action in progress.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The undesirable grouping of elements into adjacent slots of a hash table, which hurts performance.

   Heavy clustering forced the hash table to probe many slots before finding a free one.

   Linear probing tends to produce clustering that worsens as the table fills.

   Note

   A performance problem in hash tables that use open addressing. Occupied slots run together in long blocks, so each new key must probe further before it finds room, and lookups slow down as well. When linear probing causes it, the effect is called primary clustering. Here the word always names a fault to design against, unlike the everyday grouping sense, which is neutral.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The division of a population into concentrated groups on the basis of ethnicity, economic status, or religion.

   Researchers mapped the clustering of immigrant communities across the city.

   Religious clustering shaped voting patterns throughout the region.

   Similarconcentration, grouping

   Oppositedispersal

   Note

   Demographers use the word for a pattern rather than an act: where people who share an ethnicity, an income level or a faith end up living near one another. It is often studied for its effects on segregation, on access and on political behavior. It usually takes a modifier naming the shared trait, as in ethnic, religious or economic clustering.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A prewriting technique in which ideas are written around a central idea inside a circle and connected to it with radiating lines.

   Like a mind map, with a central idea sprouting branches of related thoughts.

   The workshop began with clustering to generate topics for the memoir.

   He sketched a quick clustering diagram to organize his argument.

   Note

   A writing teacher's tool for the blank page. Associations radiate outward from a single topic, which brings out connections before any drafting begins. The same method is also called webbing or mind mapping. As the name of the method it usually appears without an article, as in "start with clustering". The drawing it produces is often called a clustering diagram.

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