different between flock vs amass

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fl?k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /fl?k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English flock (“flock”), from Old English flocc (“flock, company, troop”), from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz, *flakka- (“crowd, troop”). Cognate with Middle Low German vlocke (“crowd, flock”), Old Norse flokkr (“crowd, troop, band, flock”). Perhaps related to Old English folc (“crowd, troop, band”). More at folk.

Noun

flock (plural flocks)

1. A number of birds together in a group, such as those gathered together for the purpose of migration.
2. A large number of animals associated together in a group; commonly used of various farmed animals, such as sheep and goats, but applied to a wide variety of animals.
3. Those served by a particular pastor or shepherd.
4. A large number of people.

   Synonym: congregation

5. (Christianity) A religious congregation.

   Synonym: congregation

Synonyms

(large number of people):

• bunch, gaggle, horde, host, legion, litter, nest, rabble, swarm, throng, wake

Translations

Verb

flock (third-person singular simple present flocks, present participle flocking, simple past and past participle flocked)

1. (intransitive) To congregate in or head towards a place in large numbers.

   People flocked to the cinema to see the new film.

   • What place the gods for our repose assigned.
     Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
     Began to clothe the ground

2. (transitive, obsolete) To flock to; to crowd.
   • 1609, Taylor

     Good fellows, trooping, flocked me so.

3. To treat a pool with chemicals to remove suspended particles.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English flok (“tuft of wool”), from Old French floc (“tuft of wool”), from Late Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”), probably from Frankish *flokko (“down, wool, flock”), from Proto-Germanic *flukk?n-, *flukkan-, *fluks?n- (“down, flock”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (“hair, fibres, tuft”). Cognate with Old High German flocko (“down”), Middle Dutch vlocke (“flock”), Norwegian dialectal flugsa (“snowflake”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian flokë (“hair”).

Noun

flock (countable and uncountable, plural flocks)

1. Coarse tufts of wool or cotton used in bedding.
2. A lock of wool or hair.
3. Very fine sifted woollen refuse, especially that from shearing the nap of cloths, formerly used as a coating for wallpaper to give it a velvety or clothlike appearance; also, the dust of vegetable fibre used for a similar purpose.

   • There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Translations

Verb

flock (third-person singular simple present flocks, present participle flocking, simple past and past participle flocked)

1. (transitive) To coat a surface with dense fibers or particles; especially, to create a dense arrangement of fibers with a desired nap.

Translations

Derived terms

• flocked

See also

• Appendix:English collective nouns

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish flokker, flukker, from Old Norse flokkr, from Proto-Germanic *flukkaz. Cognate with Faroese flokkur, Icelandic flokkur, Norwegian flokk, and Danish flok.

Pronunciation

Noun

flock c

1. flock; a group of people or animals
2. murder of crows

Declension

Related terms

• flockas

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