different between acquire vs amass

English

Etymology

From Middle English acqueren, from Old French aquerre, from Latin acquir?; ad- + quaer? (“to seek for”). See quest.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /??kwa???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??kwa??/
• Rhymes: -a??(?)
• Hyphenation: ac?quire

Verb

acquire (third-person singular simple present acquires, present participle acquiring, simple past and past participle acquired)

1. (transitive) To get.
2. (transitive) To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own
   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, The Consideration of our Latter End (sermon)

     No virtue is acquired in an instant, but by degrees, step by step.

   • Descent is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate, by right of representation, as his heir at law.
3. (medicine) To contract.
4. (computing) To sample signals and convert them into digital values.

Synonyms

• (get, gain): attain, come by, earn, gain, obtain, procure, secure, win

Antonyms

• (get, gain): abandon, lose

Derived terms

• acquired taste

Related terms

• acquisition
• acquirement
• acquisitive
• acquisitory

See also

• obtain
• reach

Translations

Latin

Verb

acqu?re

1. second-person singular present active imperative of acqu?r?

English

Etymology

From Middle English *amassen (found only as Middle English massen (“to amass”)), from Anglo-Norman amasser, from Medieval Latin amass?re, from ad + massa (“lump, mass”). See mass.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /??mæs/

Verb

amass (third-person singular simple present amasses, present participle amassing, simple past and past participle amassed)

1. (transitive) To collect into a mass or heap.
2. (transitive) to gather a great quantity of; to accumulate.
   • 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, Part II, Chapter V, page 123:

     […] he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines, there to recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue his object without privation.

Synonyms

• (collect into a mass): heap up, mound, pile, pile up, stack up; see also Thesaurus:pile up
• (gather a great quantity of): accumulate, amound, collect, gather, hoard; see also Thesaurus:amass

Derived terms

• amasser
• amassment

Translations

Noun

amass (plural amasses)

1. (obsolete) A large number of things collected or piled together.

   Synonyms: mass, heap, pile

   • 1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, London, p. 38,^[1]

     […] this Pillar [the Compounded Order] is nothing in effect, but a Medlie, or an Amasse of all the precedent Ornaments, making a new kinde, by stealth, and though the most richly tricked, yet the poorest in this, that he is a borrower of all his Beautie.

   • 1788, Thomas Pownall, Notices and Descriptions of Antiquities of the Provincia Romana of Gaul, London: John Nichols, p. 22,^[2]

     […] others are drawn, not as portraits, not strict copies of these most essential characteristic parts, but filled up afterwards from memory, and a general idea of an amass of arms, without the specific one of a trophæal amass, which is the fact of these bas-relieves.

2. (obsolete) The act of amassing.
   • 1591, William Garrard, The Arte of Warre, London: Roger Warde, Book 6, p. 339,^[3]

     He [the general] must neuer permit the Captaines to depart from the place, where he made the Amasse and collection of the Companies, with their bands out of order or disseuered, although they should depart to some place neere adioyning, vnlesse he were forced by some occasion of great necessity and importance:

Anagrams

• Assam, Massa, Samas, massa, msasa