different between cluster vs circle

English

Etymology

From Middle English cluster, from Old English cluster, clyster (“cluster, bunch, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *klus-, *klas- (“to clump, lump together”) + Proto-Germanic *-þr? (instrumental suffix), related to Low German Kluuster (“cluster”), dialectal Dutch klister (“cluster”), Swedish kluster (“cluster”), Icelandic klasi (“cluster; bunch of grapes”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?kl?st?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?kl?st?/
• Rhymes: -?st?(r)

Noun

cluster (plural clusters)

1. A group or bunch of several discrete items that are close to each other.

   a cluster of islands

   • 1595, Edmund Spenser, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

     Her deeds were like great clusters of ripe grapes, / Which load the bunches of the fruitful vine.

2. A number of individuals grouped together or collected in one place; a crowd; a mob.

3. (astronomy) A group of galaxies or stars that appear near each other.

4. (linguistics, education) A sequence of two or more words that occur in language with high frequency but are not idiomatic; a chunk, bundle, or lexical bundle.

   examples of clusters would include "in accordance with", "the results of" and "so far"

5. (music) A secundal chord of three or more notes.
6. (phonetics) A group of consonants.

7. (computing) A group of computers that work together.
8. (computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see block).
9. (statistics, cluster analysis) A subset of a population whose members are sufficiently similar to each other and distinct from others as to be considered a distinct group; such a grouping in a set of observed data that is statistically significant.
10. (military) A set of bombs or mines released as part of the same blast.
11. (army) A small metal design that indicates that a medal has been awarded to the same person before.
12. (slang, euphemistic) A clusterfuck.
13. (chemistry) An ensemble of bound atoms or molecules, intermediate in size between a molecule and a bulk solid.

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

cluster (third-person singular simple present clusters, present participle clustering, simple past and past participle clustered)

1. (intransitive) To form a cluster or group.

   The children clustered around the puppy.

   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Oenone

     His sunny hair / Cluster'd about his temples, like a god's.

   • 1563, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments

     the princes of the country […] clustering together

   • 1997, Lynn Keller, Forms of Expansion: Recent Long Poems by Women, University of Chicago Press, ?ISBN, chapter 6, 281:

     On the page, “Me” is irregular but—except for a prominent drawing of a two-toned hieroglyphic eye—not radically unusual: the lines are consistently left-justified; their length varies from one to a dozen syllables; they cluster in stanzalike units anywhere from one to six lines long that are separated by consistent spaces.

2. (transitive) To collect into clusters.
3. (transitive) To cover with clusters.

Translations

Anagrams

• culters, curlest, custrel, cutlers, relucts

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English cluster.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kl?s.t?r/
• Hyphenation: clus?ter
• Rhymes: -?st?r

Noun

cluster f or m or m (plural clusters, diminutive clustertje n)

1. cluster
2. (astronomy) star cluster

   Synonyms: sterrencluster, sterrenhoop, sterrenzwerm

Derived terms

• sterrencluster

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English cluster.

Noun

cluster m (plural clusters)

1. cluster

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English cluster.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /?kl?s.te?/

Noun

cluster m (plural clusters)

1. (music) cluster (chord of three or more notes)
2. (computing) cluster (group of computers working concurrently)

Spanish

Noun

cluster m (plural clusters or cluster)

1. Alternative spelling of clúster

English

Etymology

From Middle English circle, cercle, from Old French cercle and Latin circulus, diminutive of Latin circus (“circle, circus”), from Ancient Greek ?????? (kírkos, “circle, ring”), related to Old English hring (“ring”). Compare also Old English ?ircul (“circle, zodiac”), which came from the same Latin source.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sûr?-k?l, IPA^(key): /?s??k?l/
  • (UK) IPA^(key): [?s??.k??]
  • (US) IPA^(key): [?s?.k??]
• Rhymes: -??(?)k?l
• Homophone: cercal
• Hyphenation: cir?cle

Noun

circle (plural circles)

1. (geometry) A two-dimensional geometric figure, a line, consisting of the set of all those points in a plane that are equally distant from a given point (center).

   Synonyms: (not in mathematical use) coil, (not in mathematical use) ring, (not in mathematical use) loop

2. A two-dimensional geometric figure, a disk, consisting of the set of all those points of a plane at a distance less than or equal to a fixed distance (radius) from a given point.

   Synonyms: disc, (in mathematical and general use) disk, (not in mathematical use; UK & Commonwealth only) round

3. Any shape, curve or arrangement of objects that approximates to or resembles the geometric figures.

   Children, please join hands and form a circle.

   1. Any thin three-dimensional equivalent of the geometric figures.

   2. A curve that more or less forms part or all of a circle.

4. A specific group of persons; especially one who shares a common interest.

   Synonyms: bunch, gang, group

   • At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

   • “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, […], the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"

   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     The Rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.

5. The orbit of an astronomical body.
6. (cricket) A line comprising two semicircles of 30 yards radius centred on the wickets joined by straight lines parallel to the pitch used to enforce field restrictions in a one-day match.
7. (Wicca) A ritual circle that is cast three times deosil and closes three times widdershins either in the air with a wand or literally with stones or other items used for worship.
8. (South Africa) A traffic circle or roundabout.
9. (obsolete) Compass; circuit; enclosure.
10. (astronomy) An instrument of observation, whose graduated limb consists of an entire circle. When fixed to a wall in an observatory, it is called a mural circle; when mounted with a telescope on an axis and in Y's, in the plane of the meridian, a meridian or transit circle; when involving the principle of reflection, like the sextant, a reflecting circle; and when that of repeating an angle several times continuously along the graduated limb, a repeating circle.
11. A series ending where it begins, and repeating itself.

    • Thus in a circle runs the peasant's pain.

12. (logic) A form of argument in which two or more unproved statements are used to prove each other; inconclusive reasoning.
    • 1661, Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing

      That heavy bodies descend by gravity; and, again, that gravity is a quality whereby a heavy body descends, is an impertinent circle and teaches nothing.

13. Indirect form of words; circumlocution.
    • 1610, Ben Jonson, The Alchemist

      Has he given the lie, / In circle, or oblique, or semicircle.

14. A territorial division or district.

15. (in the plural) A bagginess of the skin below the eyes from lack of sleep.

Derived terms

Related terms

• circular
• circulate
• circus

Descendants

• Pitcairn-Norfolk: sirkil

Translations

Verb

circle (third-person singular simple present circles, present participle circling, simple past and past participle circled)

1. (transitive) To travel around along a curved path.

   The wolves circled the herd of deer.
2. (transitive) To surround.

   A high fence circles the enclosure.

   • 1699, William Dampier, Voyages and Descriptions

     Their heads are circled with a short turban.

   • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Dungeon

     So he lies, circled with evil.

3. (transitive) To place or mark a circle around.

   Circle the jobs that you are interested in applying for.

4. (intransitive) To travel in circles.

   Vultures circled overhead.

Derived terms

• circle the drain

Translations

Anagrams

• cleric