different between gather vs amass

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

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