https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.10142
Linkage criterion in hierarchical clustering in which the distance between two clusters is the distance between those two objects (one from each cluster) that are closest together.
Note: A drawback of this method is the so-called chaining phenomenon, which refers to the gradual growth of a cluster as one element at a time gets added to it. This may lead to impractically heterogeneous clusters and difficulties in defining classes that could usefully subdivide the data.