Is "accumulatory" a word? If not, what is? [closed]

Is "accumulatory" a word? I'm intending it to be a word that means the opposite of "fragmentary". I thought maybe "accumulatory" would be the adjective form of "accumulate", but I can't seem to find it in any dictionaries.

What is the adjective version of "accumulate"? Or, what is a word that is the opposite of "fragmentary"? I am using this word specifically to describe collisions that lead to the merging and growth of the colliding bodies, as opposed to collision that lead to the colliding bodies to fragment and shrink in size.

Solution 1:

Accumulatory appears to qualify as a "word", in that it is used in serious publications.

Cholescintigraphy (1981):

For each study two functional images are generated, i.e. accumulatory phase (upslope) and excretory phase (downslope),for the Diethyl-Ida turnover.

Rethinking Feminist Interventions Into the Urban (2013):

In Kingston, safety from both economic and physical violence has also provided the leaders of garrison communities with the loyalty and allegiance needed to engage in the capital accumulatory activities in the illicit economy.

Handbook of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry: Volume 2 (2003):

This study of alum dehydration under accumulatory conditions showed that the magnitudes of Arrhenius parameters were similar to those previously determined in vacuum.

And my favorite, The Abject Object: Avatars of the Phallus in Contemporary French Theory, Literature and Film (1994):

Georges Batille's current status as 'one of the central figures in twentieth-century French thought' (Hegarty: 2) is a comparatively recent acquisition, if so retentive and accumulatory a term can be used as an oeuvre so marked by processes of expenditure, dissemination, and squandering.

(And easily a dozen more.)

And here is a use from 1876:

For working these cranes, and others proposed to be erected on this wharf, a large engine-house, with accumulatory towers, and all the latest improvements and appliances, is rapidly drawing towards completion under the direction of Mr. C. W. Darley, resident engineer for harbours and rivers.

Yes, there are other terms that are more common, but it's pretty difficult to claim this is not a legitimate "word".

Solution 2:

Celestial bodies that grow by accumulating fragmentary particles into a massive body are said to grow by accretion.

The adjective form of accretion is accretionary.

Solution 3:

Yes, as the other answers have noted, "accumulatory" is definitely a word. What I'm not so convinced about is that it's the right word for the purpose you want to use it for. For that matter, I'm not even sure that "fragmentary" really makes sense in the context you're using it in, either.

The problem with "fragmentary" is that, at least to my ear, it describes something that is broken into pieces, scattered and/or incomplete. Specifically, it describes a state of being, not an action such as a collision. So one could, idiomatically, speak of an ancient "fragmentary document", of which only some parts survive, or, in astrophysics, perhaps of a "fragmentary body" that has been shattered into pieces by a collision. But I, at least, would not idiomatically describe the collision itself as fragmentary, since it's a single event that is not, in any meaningful sense, incomplete or consisting of multiple pieces.

(A possible exception, where "fragmentary collision" could seem appropriate, is if one of the colliding bodies was already broken into fragments that each separately struck the other body. In that case, one might indeed describe the collision event itself as involving multiple fragments.)

So what words should you use instead? Well, for collisions that break things apart, there's the perfectly good English word "fragmenting", derived from the verb "to fragment", i.e. to break something up into fragments.

Conversely, for its antonym, one might perhaps choose "accumulating", or possibly "agglomerating", "conglomerating" or "coalescing". Of course, the corresponding Latinate adjectives "accumulative", "agglomerative", "conglomerative" and "coalescent" would also work, although they don't parallel "fragmenting" quite so nicely.

Ps. I did some Google searching to try and find out what, if any, actual established terms of art there might be for these concepts.

Searching for "fragmentary collision" or "fragmentary collisions" does turn up a couple of seemingly relevant sources that use the term, although in some cases (such as "the fragmentary collision of Comet P / Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter") it's clearly used in the sense I noted above as the "possible exception", i.e. to describe a previously fragmented body colliding with another one. There are also a number of clearly irrelevant matches, such as "romance is a fragmentary collision of wary strangers".

However, "fragmenting collision" and "fragmenting collisions" both turn up orders of magnitude more results. A considerable fraction of them are clearly from astrophysical literature, although notably, the term also seems to be used in other fields such a physical chemistry or materials science to describe collisions between molecules or small grains or droplets of matter.

One of the first results also suggests a simple antonym for "fragmenting" that I had previously overlooked: "non-fragmenting".

Based on searching for the other antonyms I suggested above, I'm getting a first impression that "accumulating" and "accumulative" are probably the most common choices, although several of the others also turn up a relevant match or two. Of course, it's always possible that there's some even more common term that, not being an astrophysicist myself, I'm simply missing completely.

In any case, there are no Google results for either "accumulatory collision" or "accumulatory collisions" (although of course, as soon as Google indexes this answer, there will be).

Solution 4:

Perhaps you would like agglomeration. This noun has the meaning I think you want. From Merriam-Webster:

1: the action or process of collecting in a mass the agglomeration of matter into stars and galaxies

As you can see, it is used in contexts very similar to yours. Google searches find many examples of things like "ballistic agglomeration" and the use of the term in relation to asteroids, particle collision, and the like.

Also, it gives you the opportunity to say that your colliding bodies glommed onto one another, which has a certain folksy charm.

Solution 5:

I'll offer agglutinative

agglutination:

transitive verb
1: to cause to adhere : fasten
2: to combine into a compound : attach to a base as an affix
3: to cause to undergo agglutination
intransitive verb
1: to unite or combine into a group or mass
2: to form words by agglutination

"Agglutinate." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.