gather
verbnouncommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈɡæðə//
- United Kingdom//ˈɡaðə//
- United States//ˈɡæðɚ//
- Scotland//ˈɡaðəɾ//
To collect normally separate things.
verb
- 1
To collect normally separate things.
I've been gathering ideas from the people I work with.
She bent down to gather the reluctant cat from beneath the chair.
- 2
To collect normally separate things. Especially, to harvest food.
We went to gather some blackberries from the nearby lane.
- 3
To collect normally separate things. To accumulate over time, to amass little by little.
Over the years he'd gathered a considerable collection of mugs.
- 4
To collect normally separate things. To congregate, or assemble.
People gathered round as he began to tell his story.
Tears from the depth of some divine despair / Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, […]
At the north-western most of Iran, to the south of Maku, is the Church of Qara Kelisa (meaning the Black Church) in a village of the same name. Here is reputed to be the burialplace of St. Thaddeus and every year thousands of Armenians gather there for prayer.
- 5
To collect normally separate things. To grow gradually larger by accretion.
Their snow-ball did not gather as it went.
- 6
To bring parts of a whole closer.
She gathered the shawl about her as she stepped into the cold.
- 7
To bring parts of a whole closer. To add pleats or folds to a piece of cloth, normally to reduce its width.
A gown should be gathered around the top so that it will remain shaped.
- 8
To bring parts of a whole closer. To bring stitches closer together.
Be careful not to stretch or gather your knitting.
If you want to emphasise the shape, it is possible to gather the waistline.
- 9
To bring parts of a whole closer. 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.
- 10
To bring parts of a whole closer. To haul in; to take up.
to gather the slack of a rope
- 11
To infer or conclude; to know from a different source.
From his silence, I gathered that things had not gone well.
I gather from Aunty May that you had a good day at the match.
Press reports of the length of time the bridge is likely to be out of action vary greatly, but Mr. Farr gathers that a temporary structure may be ready in six months; complete reconstruction, however, will take at least two years. [It was never rebuilt or replaced, and demolished instead.]
- 12
To be filled with pus
Salt water can help boils to gather and then burst.
- 13
To collect molten glass on the end of a tool.
- 14
To gain; to win.
He gathers ground upon her in the chase.
Etymology
From Middle English gaderen, from Old English gaderian (“to gather, assemble”), from Proto-West Germanic *gadurōn (“to bring together, unite, gather”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰedʰ- (“to unite, assemble, keep”).
noun
- 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.
- 4
A blob of molten glass collected on the end of a blowpipe.
- 5
A gathering.
"I'll tell you all about it at the Gather, win or lose."
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.
Forms
- plural
- gathers
- past tense
- gathered
- past participle
- gathered
- present participle
- gathering
- third person singular
- gathers
gather · To collect normally separate things.
gathered · focused, centered, achieving a state of shared mysticism.gathering · A meeting or get-together; a party or social function.gator · Alligator.