clutter

name

1. A surname.

noun

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”).

1. A confused disordered jumble of things.

   “He saw what a Clutter there was with Huge, Over-grown Pots, Pans, and Spits.”

   “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.”

2. Background echoes, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
3. Alternative form of clowder (“collective noun for cats”).

   “Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification.”

4. 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”

   “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. A Sperner family.

verb

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”).

1. To fill something with clutter.

   “That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.”

2. To clot or coagulate, like blood.

   “It battereth and cluttereth into knots and balls”

3. To make a confused noise; to bustle.

   “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. To utter words hurriedly, especially (but not exclusively) as a speech disorder (compare cluttering).