aggregation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English aggregacioun,^[2][3] partly borrowed from Middle French aggregation (“gathering, assemblage, collection”), recorded in French from 1375, and partly directly borrowed from Late Latin aggregātiō (“action of gathering into a mass”),^[4][5][6][3] a noun of action from aggregō (“to bring together into a flock, collect”).^[3][6][4] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to”) and gregō (“to collect into a flock, gather”), from grex (“a flock”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to gather”).^[3] The OED compares Spanish agregación, recorded from 1424, and Italian aggregazione, from 1306.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The gathering of particles into a mass: before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie,^[4] where Etymonline and the MED find it used in medicine of the gathering of pus into a pustule.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the medical sense, Middle English used the word in arithmetic for adding numbers together.^[2][4] From the 1540s it also named the whole formed by such a gathering.^[3][4] The admission of a person into an association is recorded from 1596.^[4] The sense of the state of being aggregated is recorded from 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica,^[4] which Johnson (1755) quoted for "collection, or state of being collected".^[7] In 19th-century biology it came to mean a group or colony of separate organisms,^[4] and in North America from the 1880s, informally, a band of performers or a sports team.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1425 – the gathering of particles into a mass; in surgery, the gathering of pus into a pustule.^[4][3][2]
• c. 1450 – the adding of numbers together, summation.^[2]
• 1547 – a whole composed of many parts; a mass, an assemblage.^[4][3]
• 1596 – the admission of a person to an association.^[4]
• 1646 – the state of being aggregated.^[4][7]
• 1805 – in biology, a group or colony of separate individuals.^[4]
• 1886 – chiefly North American, a troupe of performers or a sports team.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of aggregating; the collecting of parts into a mass or whole: The aggregation of the survey data took a week.^[6][8][4]
2. The state of being aggregated.^[6][4]
3. A group or mass made up of many distinct parts; an assemblage.^[6][4][7]
4. (ecology) A distribution in which the individuals of a species are closer together than they would be if spread at random; also, a group or colony of organisms living close together.^[8][4]
5. (chiefly North American) A band of performers or a sports team.^[4]

Word family

• aggregational
• reaggregation

Related words

• aggregate
• congregation
• gregarious
• segregate
• egregious

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins