in painting and sculpture, is an assemblage of two or more figures of men, beasts, fruits, or the like, which have some apparent relation to each other. See PAINTING.—The word is formed of the Italian groppo, a knot.

The GROUPS, a cluster of islands lately discovered in the South Sea. They lie in about S. Lat. 18° 12', and W. Long. 142° 42'. They are long narrow slips of land, ranging in all directions, some of them ten miles or upwards in length, but not more than a quarter of a mile broad. They abound in trees, particularly those of the cocoa-nut. They are inhabited by well-made people, of a brown complexion. Most of them carried in their hands a slender pole about 14 feet in length, pointed like a spear; they had likewise something shaped like a paddle, about four feet long. Their canoes were of different sizes, carrying from three to six or seven people, and some of them hoisted a sail.