conglomerates

Noun

conglomerate (plural conglomerates)

1. A cluster of heterogeneous things.
   • They [miracles in the canonical gospels] are held, too, together by his [Jesus Christ's] strong and central personality, which does not leave them a conglomerate of marvellous anecdotes accidentally heaped together, but parts of a great organic whole, of which every part is in vital coherence with...1846, Richard Chenevix Trench, “The Evangelical, Compared with Other Cycles of Miracles”, in Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, section 2 (The Miracles of...
2. A corporation formed by the combination of several smaller corporations whose activities are unrelated to the corporation's primary activity.
   • The 2017 list includes 80 financial conglomerates with the head of group located in the European Union or European Economic Area, one financial conglomerate with the head of group in Switzerland, one in Bermuda, and two in the United States.2017 December 5, “ESAs [European Supervisory Authorities] Publish the List of Financial Conglomerates”, in European Banking Authority, archived from the original on 24 Jul 2018
3. A rock consisting of gravel or pebbles embedded in a matrix.
   • When sandstone is coarse-grained, it is usually called grit. If the grains are rounded, and large enough to be called pebbles, it becomes a conglomerate, or pudding-stone, which may consist of pieces of one or of many different kinds of rock. A conglomerate, therefore, is simply gravel bound...1838, Charles Lyell, “Aqueous Rocks—Their Composition and Forms of Stratification”, in Elements of Geology, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 27

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