Cluster and scatter are opposites. Cluster is to gather into a tight, dense bunch in which the parts stay close, held by nearness. Scatter is to throw or send things in different directions so they spread out irregularly. Cluster crowds things close together; scatter flings them apart at random.
One crowds things tightly together; the other flings them wide. Cluster gathers things into a tight bunch where each stays itself, held by nearness — grapes on a stem, houses on a hill. Scatter throws things out in every direction so they land with no pattern. Stars cluster in the sky; a break shot scatters the balls across the table. One presses things close; the other throws them apart.
cluster
A cluster is a group of things packed closely together — a cluster of grapes, of stars, of houses — and to cluster is for them to gather into such a tight bunch. From the Old English clyster, an old word for a bunch or branch of things growing together, a bunch of grapes being the classic image. What defines a cluster is not a boundary but density: the members crowd near one another, closer than to anything outside. The word stretches from the spatial (stars cluster) to the temporal (a cluster of events) and the technical (a cluster of data points).
scatter
To scatter is to send things flying apart so they land here and there with no order — a handful of gravel flung across a path, papers blown off a desk, a flock startled into the air. The word stresses suddenness and irregularity: what scatters is strewn unevenly and left wherever it falls, not neatly distributed. It works both ways, much like its cousin disperse — a crowd can scatter, or police can scatter it — but where disperse suggests an even thinning-away, scatter keeps that sense of a sudden, random fling.
| cluster | scatter | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | gather into a tight, dense bunch | throw things apart in all directions |
| The result | things crowded close together | an irregular, patternless spread |
| Density | dense, packed near | thin, flung wide |
| Often with | grapes, stars, houses, cases | balls, papers, seeds, a crowd |
| Noun | a cluster / clustering | scattering / a scatter |
| Example | The houses cluster on the hill. | The papers scattered. |
Ask whether things crowd close or fly wide. Cluster presses separate things near one another until they read as one dense bunch — grapes packed on a stem. Scatter flings an arrangement apart with no pattern — a racked triangle of balls broken across the table. If things pack close together, that is cluster; if they are thrown wide at random, that is scatter.
cluster
- iThe houses cluster along the sheltered side of the hill.
- iiReporters clustered around the entrance.
- iiiThe islands cluster near the mainland.
scatter
- iA gust scattered the papers across the yard.
- iiThe crowd scattered the moment the alarm sounded.
- iiiShe scattered the seeds by hand across the bed.
Cluster draws things into a tight, dense group held by nearness; scatter flings them apart into a thin, patternless spread. The contrast is one of density and direction — packed close versus flung wide. Cluster is often intransitive (the stars cluster); scatter can be transitive or intransitive.