Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Clutter
Clut′ter
,Noun.
[Cf. W.
cludair
heap, pile, cludeirio
to heap.] 1.
A confused collection; hence, confusion; disorder;
as, the room is in a
. clutter
He saw what a
clutter
there was with huge, overgrown pots, pans, and spits. L’Estrange.
2.
Clatter; confused noise.
Swift.
Clut′ter
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Cluttered
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Cluttering
.] To crowd together in disorder; to fill or cover with things in disorder; to throw into disorder; to disarrange;
as, to
. clutter
a roomClut′ter
,Verb.
I.
To make a confused noise; to bustle.
It [the goose]
cluttered
here, it chuckled there. Tennyson.
Webster 1828 Edition
Clutter
CLUTTER
, n.1.
A heap or assemblage of things lying in confusion; a word of domestic application.He saw what a clutter there was with huge pots, pans and spits.
2.
Noise; bustle. [This sense seems allied to clatter, but it is not the sense of the word in N. England.]CLUTTER
,Verb.
T.
CLUTTER
,Verb.
I.
[The English lexicographers explain this word by noise and bustle; but probably by mistake.]
Definition 2024
clutter
clutter
English
Noun
clutter (uncountable)
- A confused disordered jumble of things.
- L'Estrange
- He saw what a clutter there was with huge, overgrown pots, pans, and spits.
- 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 206-7:
- Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. 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.
- L'Estrange
- (obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Jonathan Swift to this entry?)
- 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 […]
- Background echos, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
- (countable) A group of cats; the collective noun for cats.
- 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.
- 2008, John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories, Introduction
Derived terms
- surface clutter
- volume clutter
Translations
a confused disordered jumble of things
|
Verb
clutter (third-person singular simple present clutters, present participle cluttering, simple past and past participle cluttered)
- To fill something with clutter.
- 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
- In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
-
- (obsolete, intransitive) To clot or coagulate, like blood.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Holland to this entry?)
- To make a confused noise; to bustle.
- Tennyson
- It [the goose] cluttered here, it chuckled there.
- Tennyson
Translations
to fill something with clutter