Agglomerator

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A mechanism that consolidates discrete substances into a unified whole
2. An instrument used in manufacturing to coalesce smaller elements into a larger entity
3. A tool designed to collect and combine tiny particles into larger masses

Etymology: Agglomerator is a plain technical formation rather than a story with a famous coiner. It is built from the verb "agglomerate," which comes from Latin "agglomerare," meaning "to wind onto a ball" or "to add to a mass." That Latin verb combines "ad-" ("to") with "glomus," a ball or clew of thread, so the original image is literally of material being wound up into a ball. English took "agglomerate" in the 1600s, first as a past participle used as an adjective, and the verb followed. The suffix "-or" (from Latin "-or" and "-ator") forms agent nouns, so an agglomerator is the thing that performs the action of agglomerating. The word is largely confined to industrial, chemical, and scientific contexts, where it names machines that clump fine powders, dust, or droplets into bigger pieces. Its exact date of first recorded use is not something I can confirm.