In the programming world, the word aggregate relates to a collection of data objects that form a data type. In other words, an aggregate object is one which contains other objects. For example, A car consists of several parts, like the engine, transmission, brakes, gearbox, etc.
Sometimes the class aggregation corresponds to physical containment in the model (like the car). But sometimes it is more abstract (e.g. Engine and Brakes).
It is interesting how the word aggregate in the normal sense and from a programming perspective means the same thing.
In programming, aggregation is a type of object composition where not all the containing objects should be destroyed when the owning object is destroyed.
