merg-, mers-

1. An involvement in something that completely occupies all of one's time, energy, or concentration: Gerald was in an immersion regarding an important project at work that had to be done in a short time.

Tom and his colleagues have been in an immersion of scientific research about the bad water that has been distributed by the local government and causing many people to become very sick.

2. A method of teaching a language that involves the instructor and the students using the foreign language all the time: Greg and his classmates were in a series of immersions everytime they were together while they were learning French.
3. The dipping of something into a liquid so it is completely covered or below the surface: When Clara's grandmother washed clothes, at a time before washing machines were available, she used the system of immersions by putting them into and out of the soapy water and again to rinse them in clean water.

Little Sammy was using an immersion, or plunging, of a toy duck into his tub while he was taking his bath.

When Frank went deep-sea diving, he obviously was experiencing total immersions underwater.

Any of various fish-eating diving ducks of the genus Mergus or related genera, having a slim hooked bill.

1. To combine or to cause to combine or to unite with something to form a single entity, or to make two or more things do this: "There have been rumors of the three companies merging."
2. To blend or to cause to blend something gradually into something else in order to become indistinguishable from it.

The result of becoming combined, united, swallowed up, or absorbed: "The mergence of the two enterprises resulted in financial savings and higher profits."

The act or process of combining two or more businesses into one business: "His investor thought that if the merger of the two companies were to be completed, it would be bad for their financial survival."

1. The act of joining together as one: "The merging of the two rivers was really something worth seeing."
2. The combining of two groups or things: "The mergings of the companies had to be done for their survival because of the poor economy."

1. The process by which unorganized actions of individuals serve as stimuli to the actions of other individuals, and usually result in a single outcome: "Stigmergy is a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions with the principle being that the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action with the same or a different agent."
2. A group of individuals who collectively behave as a sole entity: "The world-wide web is considered to be human stigmergy."

Ant trails and nest building are accomplished by using stigmergy."

A reference to the web and its ability to let anyone read anything and also to write back to that environment: "Internet communication activities allows stigmeric communication between people and some of the most powerful forces on the web today, Google and weblogs, are essentially motivated by stigmeric communication."