Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To cause (individual particles of clay) to aggregate into clotlike masses or precipitate into small lumps.
  • intransitive verb To cause (clouds) to form fluffy masses.
  • intransitive verb To form lumpy or fluffy masses.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To form visible loosed light masses, or flocculi, as of clay in soil-water or of nitrogenous substances in milk. The addition of lime or salt causes soil-water to flocculate; ammonia prevents the flocculation or breaks it up. A sheet of uniform stratus cloud often flocculates with numerous cirro-cumulus or alto-cumulus clouds arranged in rank and file.
  • In entomology, bearing a flocculus or small bunch of curled hairs, as the trochanters of certain bees.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb (Geol.) To aggregate into small lumps.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) Furnished with tufts of curly hairs, as some insects.
  • transitive verb To convert into floccules or flocculent aggregates; to make granular or crumbly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To collect together in a loose aggregation like flocks (tufts) of wool.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb form into an aggregated lumpy or fluffy mass
  • verb cause to become a fluffy or lumpy aggregate

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin flocculus, diminutive of floccus, a flock (tuft).

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