Agglutinations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A process wherein words or parts of words are combined into a single form without changing their original structure
2. A method of word formation that joins morphemes together to create complex expressions
3. The act of clumping or sticking elements together to form a cohesive unit in linguistics or biology

Etymology: Agglutinations is the plural of "agglutination", a word that was itself coined in the 1800s from Latin roots. Its core is the Latin verb "agglutinare", meaning "to glue to", built from "ad" ("to") and "gluten" ("glue"). That same Latin "gluten" gave English the word "gluten" itself, so the two words share a root. The term entered English in the 19th century, and the linguistic sense was specific. Scholars used it to describe languages such as Turkish, Finnish and Swahili, in which words are built by chaining separate, clearly visible suffixes or prefixes, each carrying one meaning, onto a stem. The image is of pieces stuck together rather than fused or altered, which is why the metaphor of glue was chosen.

Synonyms: clumping, coalescence, adhesion, fusion, combination