clutter

See also: Clutter

English

Etymology

From Middle English cloteren (“to form clots; coagulate; heap on”), from clot (“clot”), equivalent to clot +‎ -er (frequentative suffix). Compare Welsh cludair (“heap, pile”), cludeirio (“to heap”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈklʌtə(ɹ)/
    • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈklʌtɚ/, [ˈklʌɾɚ]
  • Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)

Noun

clutter (countable and uncountable, plural clutters)

  1. (uncountable) A confused disordered jumble of things.
  2. (uncountable) Background echoes, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
  3. (countable, collective) Alternative form of clowder.
    Synonyms: clowder, glaring
    Hyponym: kindle
    • 2008, John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories, Introduction:
      Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification.
    • 1995, Sybil Marshall, The Chequer board‎[1], Penguin:
      It was unbelievable that he was afraid of being ousted from the house of his dreams by one senile old man and a clutter of cats!
    • 1946, Blackwood's Magazine‎[2], W. Blackwood, page 121:
      there is always a clutter of cats, children, washing, and women with untidy hair.
  4. (obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
    • October 14 1718, John Arbuthnot, letter to Jonathan Swift
      I hardly heard a word of news or politicks, except a little clutter about sending some impertinent presidents du parliament to prison
    • 1835, William Cobbett, John Morgan Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett, Selections from Cobbett's political works, volume 1, page 33:
      It was then you might have heard a clutter: pots, pans and pitchers, mugs, jugs and jordens, all put themselves in motion at once […]
  5. (mathematics) A Sperner family.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

clutter (third-person singular simple present clutters, present participle cluttering, simple past and past participle cluttered)

  1. (transitive) To fill something with clutter.
    • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎[3], volume 407, number 8837, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 October 2017, page 74:
      That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
  2. (obsolete, intransitive) To clot or coagulate, like blood.
  3. (intransitive) To make a confused noise; to bustle.
    • 1832, Alfred Tennyson, “The Goose”, in Poems. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, stanza VII, page 231:
      It [the goose] clutter'd here, it chuckled there; / It stirr'd the old wife's mettle: / She shifted in her elbow-chair, / And hurl'd the pan and kettle.
  4. (transitive, intransitive) To utter words hurriedly, especially (but not exclusively) as a speech disorder (compare cluttering).

Derived terms

Translations

References

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