conglomerate.

1. A large business made up of several companies operating in different areas.

2. Rock made of rounded fragments held together by finer material.

3. To gather or combine into a larger, often varied mass or group.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• industrial conglomerate
• media conglomerate

On the page

The publishing house became part of a conglomerate with interests in shipping and food.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Singular conglomerate; plural conglomerates. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common. Third-person singular: conglomerates.