Noun

(en noun)

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

a cluster of islands

* Spenser

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

*{{quote-book, year=1907, author=

, chapter=7, title= The Dust of Conflict , passage=Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks but clusters , from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs

*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 29, author=Keith Jackson, work=Daily Record

, title= SPL: Celtic 1 Rangers 0 , passage=Charlie Mulgrew’s delicious deadball delivery was attacked by a cluster of green and white shirts at McGregor’s back post but Ledley got up higher and with more purpose than anyone else to thump a header home from five yards.}}

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= William E. Conner

, title= An Acoustic Arms Race , volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}

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

* Milton

As bees / Pour forth their populous youth about the hive / In clusters .

* Shakespeare

We loved him; but, like beasts / And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters , / Who did hoot him out o' the city.

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

(music) A secundal chord of three or more notes.

(phonetics) A group of consonants.

(computing) A group of computers that work together.

(computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see block).

(statistics) A significant subset within a population.

(military) Set of bombs or mines.

(army) A small metal design that indicates that a medal has been awarded to the same person before.

An ensemble of bound atoms or molecules, intermediate in size between a molecule and a bulk solid.

Noun

(en-noun)

A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.

* 1593 , (William Shakespeare), Titus Andronicus , Act V, Scene III, line 70:

O, let me teach you how to knit again / This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf , / These broken limbs again into one body.

* (rfdate) (John Dryden):

The reaper fills his greedy hands, / And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands.

Any collection of things bound together; a bundle.

a sheaf of paper

A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.

* (rfdate) (John Dryden):

The sheaf of arrows shook and rattled in the case.

A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.

* 1786 , Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons , page 34:

Arrows were anciently made of reeds, afterwards of cornel wood, and occasionally of every species of wood: but according to Roger Ascham, ash was best; arrows were reckoned by sheaves', a ' sheaf consisted of twenty-four arrows.

(mechanical) A sheave.

(mathematics) An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space, together with well-defined restrictions from larger to smaller open sets, subject to the condition that compatible data on overlapping open sets corresponds, via the restrictions, to a unique datum on the union of the open sets.

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