the.com/amalgamation

means The act or result of combining separate things into one unified whole.

from Traces back to medieval Latin 'amalgama,' used by alchemists for a soft blend of mercury with another metal — mercury being the great dissolver that could absorb gold or silver into a single pliable mass. The word's deeper roots are murky; some have guessed at Greek 'malagma' (a softening poultice), but etymologists generally mark the connection as unproven rather than fact. By the 1600s English borrowed 'amalgam' for any fusion of metals, and the verb 'amalgamate' soon followed for any merging of things, companies, or peoples — the alchemical crucible becoming a boardroom metaphor.