different between amass vs ambass

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

English

Etymology

Irregular back-formation from ambassador.

Verb

ambass (third-person singular simple present ambasses, present participle ambassing, simple past and past participle ambassed)

1. (humorous) To engage in the professional work of an ambassador.
   • 1913, John Kendrick Bangs, "To Marse Tom and Meh Lady", The Bookman, Volume XXXVIII, page 114

     How fruitless attempts to involve us in war With HIM to AMBASS and with HER to ADOR.

   • 1917, John Kendrick Bangs, Half hours with the Idiot, Little, Brown, and Company, page 4

     The home of an American Ambassador should express America not the country to which he is sent to Ambass.

   • 1914,, Association men, Volume 39, YMCA of the USA, page 361

     Politics, graft, war, sport and scandal are aired in turn, but the "ambassador" fails to ambass — the "worker" fails to work — the "messenger" makes a mess of it.

   • 1961, Ilka Chase, The Carthaginian rose, Doubleday, page 51

     ... cut off from their governments and obliged to rely on their own wisdom, knowledge and experience, when they had, in a word, to ambass. Nowadays they pick up the phone and the State Department, for better or worse, tells then what to do.

   • 1995, Will Rogers, Will Rogers speaks, ?ISBN, page 21

     I have always maintained there was something wrong with Ambassadors, as none of them seemed to ambass properly.

   • 2001, Peter David, The Rift (2001) (Star Trek: The Original Series Book 57), Simon & Schuster, ?ISBN, page 161

     "Therefore," said Kirk, […] "Shipping her back in box is not one of the options, […] this will require the skills of an Ambassador. So you're going to have to […] Ambass."

Translations

Anagrams

• sambas