Clutter Meaning
/ˈklʌtə(ɹ)/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA confused disordered jumble of things.
nounBackground echoes, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
Sentence Examples
I try not to clutter up my room with junk.
There's too much clutter in the house now that we have two kids.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The desk was covered in papers and books, creating a messy ____ that annoyed him.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
There was too much ____ on my desk, so I decided to clean it up.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"He saw what a Clutter there was with Huge, Over-grown Pots, Pans, and Spits."
— 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7:
"Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification."
— 2008, John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories, Introduction:
"It was then you might have heard a clutter: pots, pans and pitchers, mugs, jugs and jordens, all put themselves in motion at once[…]"
— 1835, William Cobbett, John Morgan Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett, Selections from Cobbett's political works, volume 1, page 33:
"That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters."
— 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The desk was covered in papers and books, creating a messy ____ that annoyed him.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
There was too much ____ on my desk, so I decided to clean it up.