1. the act of tying or binding. 2 a cord, wire, or bandage used for tying or binding, esp. in surgery 3. a character, letter, or type, such as æ, combining two or more letters 4. a group of notes intended to be played or sung as one phrase

I noticed a trend developing with a few of my words, so I thought I’d round it out with this one. They all have to do with two or more elements forming a single element of some sort. Here are the other words in this series: portmanteau, melisma, diphthong. There’s also the obvious one, amalgam (A combination of diverse elements; a mixture), but I didn’t feel like making it a wotd.