Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Characterized by agglutination; tending to stick or clump together: Describes the property of substances or particles that unite or adhere, as if by glue.
   • (Linguistics) Pertaining to a language structure where words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each with a single, distinct meaning: Describes a type of language where complex words are created by adding affixes (prefixes, suffixes, etc.) to a root, and each affix typically conveys one grammatical or semantic meaning.

Usage Examples

• General (Adhesive Sense):

  • The agglutinative properties of the resin made it perfect for the bonding application.
  • Under the microscope, we observed the agglutinative behavior of the blood cells.

• Linguistics:

  • Turkish is a classic example of an agglutinative language.
  • In agglutinative languages, a single word can express what requires a whole sentence in English.

Advanced Usage

• "Agglutinative morphology": The specific study or system of word formation in languages that use agglutination.

  • The linguist's research focused on the agglutinative morphology of the Uralic language family.

• "Highly agglutinative": Used to emphasize the extensive use of affixation in a language.

  • Finnish is highly agglutinative, allowing for very long, compound-like words.

Variants and Related Words

• Agglutinate (verb): To cause to adhere, as with glue; to clump together. In linguistics, to form words by combining morphemes.

  • The antibodies will agglutinate the foreign cells.
  • The language allows speakers to agglutinate several suffixes to a verb stem.

• Agglutination (noun): The process or result of agglutinating.

  • The agglutination of red blood cells is a key test in blood typing.
  • Word formation by agglutination is very systematic.

Synonyms

• Adhesive: Having the property of sticking to a surface.
• Clumping: Gathering into a cluster or mass.
• Synthetic (Linguistics, specific sense): A type of language that combines multiple morphemes into single words (agglutinative and fusional languages are sub-types of synthetic languages).

Antonyms

• Isolating (Linguistics): Pertaining to languages where words are typically single morphemes and grammatical relationships are shown by word order (e.g., Mandarin Chinese).
• Analytic (Linguistics): Similar to isolating; using separate words rather than inflections.
• Non-adhesive: Not tending to stick.

Related Phrases / Concepts

• Agglutinative language: A language that primarily uses agglutination in its grammar (e.g., Japanese, Korean, Swahili, Hungarian).

  • Learning an agglutinative language requires understanding its suffix chains.

• Fusional language: A different type of synthetic language where affixes combine multiple pieces of grammatical information into a single, often inseparable, unit (e.g., Latin, Russian). This is often contrasted with agglutinative languages.

Adjective

1. united as if by glue
2. forming derivative or compound words by putting together constituents each of which expresses a single definite meaning