ag·gre·gate
ˈa-gri-gət 
: formed by the collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount : collective: such as
a(1)
: clustered in a dense mass or head
an aggregate flower
(2)
: formed from several separate ovaries of a single flower
aggregate fruit
b
: composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments
c
: taking all units as a whole
aggregate sales
aggregately
adverb
aggregateness
noun
ag·gre·gate
ˈa-gri-ˌgāt
aggregated; aggregating
1
: to collect or gather into a mass or whole
The census data were aggregated by gender.
2
: to amount to (a whole sum or total) : total
audiences aggregating several million people
ag·gre·gate
ˈa-gri-gət
1
: a mass or body of units or parts somewhat loosely associated with one another
Froth is an aggregate of tiny bubbles.
2
: the whole sum or amount : sum total
spent an aggregate of 10 million dollars in advertising during the past three years
3
a
: a rock composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments : an aggregate rock
b
: any of several hard inert materials (such as sand, gravel, or slag) used for mixing with a cementing material to form concrete, mortar, or plaster
c
: a clustered mass of individual soil particles varied in shape, ranging in size from a microscopic granule to a small crumb, and considered the basic structural unit of soil
4
Did you know?
We added aggregate to our flock of Latin borrowings in the 15th century. It descends from aggregāre ("to cause to flock together" or "to join together"), a Latin verb made up of the prefix ad- (which means "to," and which usually changes to ag- before a g) and greg- or grex (meaning "flock, herd, or group"). Greg- also gave us congregate, gregarious, and segregate. Aggregate is commonly employed in the phrase "in the aggregate," which means "considered as a whole." Aggregate also has some specialized senses. For example, it is used to describe a mass of minerals formed into a rock, and materials like sand or gravel that are used to form concrete, mortar, or plaster.
Synonyms
Examples of aggregate in a Sentence
Adjective
There were to be thirty-seven playgrounds, twenty schools. There were to be a hundred and thirty-three miles of street, paved with an inch and a half of No. 2 macadam on an aggregate base.
—
Joan Didion, New Yorker, 26 July 1993
Their success at opening up new sources of supply, generating and servicing demand, and connecting new markets with the processing industries of the Amsterdam entrepôt seemed … to belie the axiom of an inelastic aggregate volume of world trade—a zero-sum competition.
—Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 1988
The mulberry looks a bit like a raspberry. But the raspberry (along with the other brambles, members of the genus Rubus, such as the blackberry) is an aggregate fruit generated by a single, if complex, flower.
—Raymond Sokolov, Natural History, October 1986
With Keynes, standard theory conceded that disequilibria might intrude upon the economy as a whole, but it held that these could be remedied by judicious stabilization of aggregate demand—that is, combined government and consumer purchasing power.
—Robert Kuttner, Atlantic, February 1985
The university receives more than half its aggregate income from government sources.
The team with the highest aggregate score wins.
Verb
The problem, in this case, is that the synergy creates incentives for segregation. Ethnic advertisers scour the TV schedule for shows and channels that "aggregate" viewers of the type the client wants to reach …
—Tamar Jacoby, New Republic, 24 Jan. 2000
"We are good at aggregating eyeballs and delivering services," says Barry Schuler, the president of AOL Interactive Services, "and the Time Warner deal is a natural extension of that."
—Barry Schuler, Fortune, 7 Feb. 2000
Pollsters, for the most part, know perfectly well what they are doing. One thing they are doing is aggregating and averaging ephemeral spasms of "mood" that may have commercial or political value.
—Christopher Hitchens, Harper's, April 1992
… covered only if each of the corporations involved has capital, surplus and undivided profits aggregating more than $10 million …
—Joe Sims et al., National Law Journal, 28 Jan. 1991
The website aggregates content from many other sites.
over time, her petty thefts aggregated a significant shortfall in the company's books
Noun
In particular, a core of popular politically minded blogs known in the aggregate as the Blogosphere has been a beehive of furious activity. Or should I say a wasp's nest?
—Steven Levy, Newsweek, 4 Oct. 2004
It's true that our lives are the aggregate of a lot of little things, that's precisely why, at least once a year, we need to ride the wave of something bigger and bolder than our own little humdrum existence.
—Will Manley, Booklist, 1 Sept. 2002
Smallness of enterprises, as in the Japanese bicycle-manufacturing development, is an asset because smallness cuts down administrative and other overhead costs both in individual enterprises and in the aggregate, in comparison with the overhead costs of large operations.
—Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, (1984) 1985
numerous episodes of pilferage, taken in the aggregate, can really add up to a significant sum
See More
Joan Didion, New Yorker, 26 July 1993
Their success at opening up new sources of supply, generating and servicing demand, and connecting new markets with the processing industries of the Amsterdam entrepôt seemed … to belie the axiom of an inelastic aggregate volume of world trade—a zero-sum competition.
—Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 1988
The mulberry looks a bit like a raspberry. But the raspberry (along with the other brambles, members of the genus Rubus, such as the blackberry) is an aggregate fruit generated by a single, if complex, flower.
—Raymond Sokolov, Natural History, October 1986
With Keynes, standard theory conceded that disequilibria might intrude upon the economy as a whole, but it held that these could be remedied by judicious stabilization of aggregate demand—that is, combined government and consumer purchasing power.
—Robert Kuttner, Atlantic, February 1985
The university receives more than half its aggregate income from government sources.
The team with the highest aggregate score wins.
Verb
The problem, in this case, is that the synergy creates incentives for segregation. Ethnic advertisers scour the TV schedule for shows and channels that "aggregate" viewers of the type the client wants to reach …
—Tamar Jacoby, New Republic, 24 Jan. 2000
"We are good at aggregating eyeballs and delivering services," says Barry Schuler, the president of AOL Interactive Services, "and the Time Warner deal is a natural extension of that."
—Barry Schuler, Fortune, 7 Feb. 2000
Pollsters, for the most part, know perfectly well what they are doing. One thing they are doing is aggregating and averaging ephemeral spasms of "mood" that may have commercial or political value.
—Christopher Hitchens, Harper's, April 1992
… covered only if each of the corporations involved has capital, surplus and undivided profits aggregating more than $10 million …
—Joe Sims et al., National Law Journal, 28 Jan. 1991
The website aggregates content from many other sites.
over time, her petty thefts aggregated a significant shortfall in the company's books
Noun
In particular, a core of popular politically minded blogs known in the aggregate as the Blogosphere has been a beehive of furious activity. Or should I say a wasp's nest?
—Steven Levy, Newsweek, 4 Oct. 2004
It's true that our lives are the aggregate of a lot of little things, that's precisely why, at least once a year, we need to ride the wave of something bigger and bolder than our own little humdrum existence.
—Will Manley, Booklist, 1 Sept. 2002
Smallness of enterprises, as in the Japanese bicycle-manufacturing development, is an asset because smallness cuts down administrative and other overhead costs both in individual enterprises and in the aggregate, in comparison with the overhead costs of large operations.
—Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, (1984) 1985
numerous episodes of pilferage, taken in the aggregate, can really add up to a significant sum
See More
Recent Examples on the WebRandall Chase, Fortune, 30 Nov. 2023
But a Robbie Keane penalty-kick goal reestablished some breathing room, and the Galaxy advanced on aggregate goals despite the loss.
—Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 25 Nov. 2023
Willard, 32, was arrested Monday and charged with forgery and aggregate theft greater than $300,000 after a roughly year-long investigation, Rosen said.
—Kyle Melnick, Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2023
Wood Mackenzie estimated aggregate Tesla Solar Roof installations in the U.S. just recently hit 3,000 since the product launched—not even enough to produce a measly 30 megawatts of electricity in total.
—Bychristiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 20 Nov. 2023
Eos’s GPUs are capable of an aggregate 42.6 billion billion floating-point operations per second (exaflops).
—IEEE Spectrum, 12 Nov. 2023
London’s companies make up about 9% of the list’s aggregate revenue of $13.94 trillion.
—Prarthana Prakash, Fortune Europe, 8 Nov. 2023
The 30 movies produced by Toho in Japan have earned aggregate worldwide grosses of over $1 billion – in addition to the revenues of the Hollywood versions created under license at Legendary Pictures.
—Patrick Frater, Variety, 31 Oct. 2023
Dependent undergraduates have an aggregate borrowing limit of $31,000.
—Rebecca Safier, wsj.com, 14 Oct. 2023
Martha C. White, wsj.com, 11 Sep. 2023
Accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube make plenty of sweet ad cash aggregating Tumblr’s most creative and hilarious posts.
—Allegra Rosenberg, The Verge, 17 Nov. 2023
That earlier generation of blogs once performed the task of aggregating news and stories from across the Internet.
—Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023
These picks reflect the best rates available as aggregated by DepositAccounts.com, which tracks roughly 275,000 rates at more than 11,000 banks and credit unions, and Buy Side from WSJ’s own research.
—Martha C. White, wsj.com, 2 Oct. 2023
To start, India can build, train, and finetune a massive foundational LLM that uses data already in the public domain or that is legally aggregated with full permission from its creators or owners.
—Vivek Wadhwa, Fortune, 1 Sep. 2023
Getting a single message in front of millions is often more cost-efficient when compared to aggregating the hundreds of individual exposures that often take place via streaming video.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 18 Oct. 2023
It can also be detected in animal products treated with some veterinary drugs or shellfish, which aggregate arsenic from seawater.
—Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Oct. 2023
Digital media sites aggregated viral content from the platform, repackaging Vines into viral roundups and internet explainers.
—Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2023
Jem Aswad, Variety, 21 Nov. 2023
So what does this actually tell us in the aggregate?
—Boris Kachka, Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2023
In the aggregate, the United States has grown dramatically wealthier and more powerful through internationalized trade, but the rewards have been unevenly distributed in American society.
—Ryan Hass, Foreign Affairs, 24 Oct. 2023
To recognize the magnitude of the measurement error resulting from the Royal Society’s inclusion of voluntary behavioral changes that occurred as a result of the pandemic in its aggregate, consider what happened in early 2020 in Sweden.
—Lars Jonung, National Review, 21 Sep. 2023
There's no aggregate, comprehensive data yet on the programs' effects.
—Jennifer Peltz and Jesse Bedayn, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Aug. 2023
The company offers hauling services and access to materials and aggregates.
—Gregory Royal Pratt, Chicago Tribune, 13 July 2023
Companies are reporting earnings that are 6.6% above estimates in aggregate, below the five-year average of 8.5%.
—WSJ, 20 Oct. 2023
The Norwegian sovereign fund and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. veteran Henry Ellenbogen’s Durable Capital Partners LP had expressed interest in buying as much as $300 million of stock in aggregate, according to the filings.
—Ryan Gould, Fortune, 11 Oct. 2023
See More
Adjective
Under a 2021 cost-sharing arrangement that resolved legal disputes over PFAS liabilities arising out of pre-2015 conduct, DuPont and Corteva, on one hand, and Chemours, on the other, agreed to a 50-50 split of certain expenses incurred over a term of up to 20 years, or an aggregate $4 billion.
—Randall Chase, Fortune, 30 Nov. 2023
But a Robbie Keane penalty-kick goal reestablished some breathing room, and the Galaxy advanced on aggregate goals despite the loss.
—Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 25 Nov. 2023
Willard, 32, was arrested Monday and charged with forgery and aggregate theft greater than $300,000 after a roughly year-long investigation, Rosen said.
—Kyle Melnick, Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2023
Wood Mackenzie estimated aggregate Tesla Solar Roof installations in the U.S. just recently hit 3,000 since the product launched—not even enough to produce a measly 30 megawatts of electricity in total.
—Bychristiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 20 Nov. 2023
Eos’s GPUs are capable of an aggregate 42.6 billion billion floating-point operations per second (exaflops).
—IEEE Spectrum, 12 Nov. 2023
London’s companies make up about 9% of the list’s aggregate revenue of $13.94 trillion.
—Prarthana Prakash, Fortune Europe, 8 Nov. 2023
The 30 movies produced by Toho in Japan have earned aggregate worldwide grosses of over $1 billion – in addition to the revenues of the Hollywood versions created under license at Legendary Pictures.
—Patrick Frater, Variety, 31 Oct. 2023
Dependent undergraduates have an aggregate borrowing limit of $31,000.
—Rebecca Safier, wsj.com, 14 Oct. 2023
Verb
These picks reflect the best available rates as aggregated by Deposit Accounts, which tracks roughly 275,000 rates at more than 11,000 banks and credit unions, and Buy Side from WSJ’s own research.
—Martha C. White, wsj.com, 11 Sep. 2023
Accounts on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube make plenty of sweet ad cash aggregating Tumblr’s most creative and hilarious posts.
—Allegra Rosenberg, The Verge, 17 Nov. 2023
That earlier generation of blogs once performed the task of aggregating news and stories from across the Internet.
—Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023
These picks reflect the best rates available as aggregated by DepositAccounts.com, which tracks roughly 275,000 rates at more than 11,000 banks and credit unions, and Buy Side from WSJ’s own research.
—Martha C. White, wsj.com, 2 Oct. 2023
To start, India can build, train, and finetune a massive foundational LLM that uses data already in the public domain or that is legally aggregated with full permission from its creators or owners.
—Vivek Wadhwa, Fortune, 1 Sep. 2023
Getting a single message in front of millions is often more cost-efficient when compared to aggregating the hundreds of individual exposures that often take place via streaming video.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 18 Oct. 2023
It can also be detected in animal products treated with some veterinary drugs or shellfish, which aggregate arsenic from seawater.
—Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Oct. 2023
Digital media sites aggregated viral content from the platform, repackaging Vines into viral roundups and internet explainers.
—Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post, 28 Sep. 2023
Noun
But in aggregate, these small disregarded payments have added up to $40 million in 2022 alone, which could instead increase the payments to artists who are most dependent on streaming revenue.
—Jem Aswad, Variety, 21 Nov. 2023
So what does this actually tell us in the aggregate?
—Boris Kachka, Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2023
In the aggregate, the United States has grown dramatically wealthier and more powerful through internationalized trade, but the rewards have been unevenly distributed in American society.
—Ryan Hass, Foreign Affairs, 24 Oct. 2023
To recognize the magnitude of the measurement error resulting from the Royal Society’s inclusion of voluntary behavioral changes that occurred as a result of the pandemic in its aggregate, consider what happened in early 2020 in Sweden.
—Lars Jonung, National Review, 21 Sep. 2023
There's no aggregate, comprehensive data yet on the programs' effects.
—Jennifer Peltz and Jesse Bedayn, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Aug. 2023
The company offers hauling services and access to materials and aggregates.
—Gregory Royal Pratt, Chicago Tribune, 13 July 2023
Companies are reporting earnings that are 6.6% above estimates in aggregate, below the five-year average of 8.5%.
—WSJ, 20 Oct. 2023
The Norwegian sovereign fund and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. veteran Henry Ellenbogen’s Durable Capital Partners LP had expressed interest in buying as much as $300 million of stock in aggregate, according to the filings.
—Ryan Gould, Fortune, 11 Oct. 2023
See More
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'aggregate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Adjective
Middle English aggregat, borrowed from Latin aggregātus, past participle of aggregāre "to cause to flock together, join, include, lump together," from ad- ad- + -gregāre, verbal derivative of greg-, grex "flock, herd, group" — more at gregarious
Verb
Middle English aggregaten, borrowed from Latin aggregātus, past participle of aggregāre "to cause to flock together, join" — more at aggregate entry 1
Noun
Middle English aggregat, borrowed from Medieval Latin aggregātus, noun derivative of Latin aggregātus, past participle of aggregāre "to cause to flock together, join" — more at aggregate entry 1
First Known Use
Adjective
15th century, in the meaning defined above
Verb
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Noun
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Time Traveler
The first known use of aggregate was
in the 15th century
Phrases Containing aggregate
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Dictionary Entries Near aggregate
Cite this Entry
“Aggregate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggregate. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.
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Kids Definition
aggregate
1 of 3 adjective
ag·gre·gate
ˈag-ri-gət
1
: formed by the collection of units or particles into one mass or sum
aggregate expenses
2
: clustered in a dense mass or head
an aggregate flower
aggregate
2 of 3 verb
ag·gre·gate
ˈag-ri-ˌgāt
aggregated; aggregating
1
: to collect or gather into a mass or whole
2
: to amount to as a whole : total
aggregate
3 of 3 noun
ag·gre·gate
ˈag-ri-gət
1
: a collection or sum of units or parts
2
a
: a hard material (as sand or gravel) used especially in making concrete
b
: a clustered mass of individual soil particles considered the basic structural unit of soil
Etymology
Adjective
Middle English aggregat "made up of a collection," derived from Latin aggregare "to cause to join together," from ag-, ad- "to, toward" and greg-, grex "flock, herd" — related to congregate, segregate
Medical Definition
aggregate
1 of 3 adjective
ag·gre·gate
ˈag-ri-gət
: formed by the collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount
aggregation
noun
It is now known that these calcifications represent focal aggregations of calcium hydroxyapatite …
—Medical Radiography & Photography
Medical Radiography & Photography
aggregate
2 of 3 transitive verb
ag·gre·gate
-ˌgāt
aggregated; aggregating
: to collect or gather into a mass or whole
aggregated human albumin
aggregate
3 of 3 noun
ag·gre·gate
-gət
: a mass or body of units or parts somewhat loosely associated with one another
Legal Definition
aggregate
1 of 3 adjective
ag·gre·gate
ˈa-grə-gət
: taken as a total
aggregate liability
aggregate
2 of 3 verb
ag·gre·gate
ˈa-grə-ˌgāt
aggregated; aggregating
1
: to combine or gather into a whole
class members may aggregate their individual claims
compare join
2
: to amount to
an award aggregating $100,000
: to form an aggregate
they may not aggregate if their claims are regarded as “separate and distinct”—J. M. Landers et al.
J. M. Landers et al.aggregate
3 of 3 noun
ag·gre·gate
ˈa-grə-gət
1
: total amount
may sue in federal court if the aggregate of the claims exceeds $75,000
2
: a whole made up of individual units
the aggregate of operative facts
More from Merriam-Webster on aggregate
Nglish: Translation of aggregate for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of aggregate for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about aggregate
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