grouping

Pluralgroupings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A collection of people or things brought together and treated as a single group.

   The committee proposed a new grouping of departments to streamline reporting.

   Political analysts identified several distinct groupings within the new coalition.

   Similarcluster, faction, bloc, arrangement

   Note

   The word can describe how things happen to lie together, not only how someone has organized them. Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851) has masses of rock strewn "in fantastic groupings" across a plain, an arrangement seen almost as a composition. It is an ordinary count noun and takes the plural freely: several groupings, distinct groupings.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of combining people or things into groups.

   The grouping of similar tasks improved the team's efficiency.

   Effective grouping of data points is essential before analysis begins.

   Similarclustering, classification, categorization, sorting, arrangement

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of group.

   The software is grouping similar files automatically.

   Researchers are grouping the samples by region before testing.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. After a form of be it builds the progressive (they are grouping the samples), and on its own it names the action (grouping the samples took an hour). Like group itself, it can take an object or stand without one, as when people are grouping around a speaker. As a gerund it takes its object directly. The noun for the act needs of instead, and it can be pluralized.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The pattern formed by a series of shots on a target, showing how closely together they land.

   The shooter's grouping tightened noticeably after she adjusted her stance.

   Testers praised the rifle's consistent grouping at long range.

   Note

   Marksmen judge consistency by this: the closer the hits cluster, the more precise the firearm, the ammunition or the shooter. The full term is shot grouping, and it usually comes with adjectives of size, such as a tight grouping or a loose one. It counts as one pattern on one target (a five-shot grouping) and also stands uncounted for consistency in general.

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