different between descend vs gather

English

Etymology

From Middle English decenden, borrowed from Old French descendre, from Latin descendere, past participle descensus (“to come down, go down, fall, sink”), from de- (“down”) + scandere (“to climb”). See scan, scandent. Compare ascend, condescend, transcend.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??s?nd/
• Hyphenation (US): de?scend; (UK): des?cend
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

descend (third-person singular simple present descends, present participle descending, simple past and past participle descended)

1. (intransitive) To pass from a higher to a lower place; to move downwards; to come or go down in any way, for example by falling, flowing, walking, climbing etc.
   • 2002, John Griesemer, No One Thinks of Greenland: A Novel

     Rudy felt a gust of fear rise in his chest, and he looked again in the mirror, but the hangar and stable were now beyond the rise, out of sight, he was descending so fast.

   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of the University of Cambridge: From the Conquest to the Year 1634

   We will here descend to matters of later date.

   • 1611, King James Version, Matthew vii. 25.

   The rain descended, and the floods came.

2. (intransitive, poetic) To enter mentally; to retire.

   • [He] with holiest meditations fed, Into himself descended.

3. (intransitive, with on or upon) To make an attack, or incursion, as if from a vantage ground; to come suddenly and with violence.
   • 2013, Deltrice Alfred Grossmith, Arctic Warriors: A Personal Account of Convoy PQ18

     more aircraft descending on us than had done during previous visits from the snoopers in their usual ones and twos.

   • 1726, Alexander Pope, Odyssey

   And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.

4. (intransitive) To come down to a lower, less fortunate, humbler, less virtuous, or worse, state or rank; to lower or abase oneself
   • August 25, 1759, Samuel Johnson, The Idler No. 71

     He […] began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings.

5. (intransitive) To pass from the more general or important to the specific or less important matters to be considered.
6. (intransitive) To come down, as from a source, original, or stock
7. to be derived (from)
8. to proceed by generation or by transmission; to happen by inheritance.

9. (intransitive, astronomy) To move toward the south, or to the southward.
10. (intransitive, music) To fall in pitch; to pass from a higher to a lower tone.
11. (transitive) To go down upon or along; to pass from a higher to a lower part of

Synonyms

• go down

Antonyms

• ascend
• go up

Derived terms

• descender

Related terms

• descent

Translations

Anagrams

• scended

French

Verb

descend

1. third-person singular present indicative of descendre

English

Alternative forms

• gether (obsolete or regional)

Etymology

From Middle English gaderen, from Old English gaderian (“to gather, assemble”), from Proto-West Germanic *gadur?n (“to bring together, unite, gather”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?ed?- (“to unite, assemble, keep”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??æð?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??æð?/
• Rhymes: -æð?(?)

Verb

gather (third-person singular simple present gathers, present participle gathering, simple past and past participle gathered)

1. To collect; normally separate things.
   1. Especially, to harvest food.

   2. To accumulate over time, to amass little by little.

   3. (intransitive) To congregate, or assemble.
      • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Tears

        Tears from the depth of some divine despair / Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes.

   4. (intransitive) To grow gradually larger by accretion.

      • Their snow-ball did not gather as it went.

2. To bring parts of a whole closer.
   1. (sewing) To add pleats or folds to a piece of cloth, normally to reduce its width.

   2. (knitting) To bring stitches closer together.

   3. (architecture) To bring together, or nearer together, in masonry, as for example where the width of a fireplace is rapidly diminished to the width of the flue.
   4. (nautical) To haul in; to take up.

3. To infer or conclude; to know from a different source.

4. (intransitive, medicine, of a boil or sore) To be filled with pus

5. (glassblowing) To collect molten glass on the end of a tool.
6. To gain; to win.

Synonyms

• (to bring together): aggroup, togetherize; see also Thesaurus:round up

  (—to accumulate over time): accrue, add up; see also Thesaurus:accumulate

  (—to congregate): assemble, begather; see also Thesaurus:assemble

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

gather (plural gathers)

1. A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker.
2. The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward.
3. The soffit or under surface of the masonry required in gathering. See gather (transitive verb).
4. (glassblowing) A blob of molten glass collected on the end of a blowpipe.
5. A gathering.
   • 2007, John Barnes, The Sky So Big and Black (Tor Books, ?ISBN):

     "I'll tell you all about it at the Gather, win or lose."

   • 2014, Paul Lederer, Dark Angel Riding (Open Road Media, ?ISBN):

     What bothered him more, he thought as he started Washoe southward, was Spikes's animosity, the bearded man's sudden violent reaction to his arrival at the gather.

Derived terms

• gathering iron

Translations

Anagrams

• Gareth, rageth