assemble
Formsassembles, assembling, assembled
- 1To put parts or components together to form a complete whole.
The workers assemble each engine by hand on the factory line.
He carefully assembled the wardrobe from the flat-pack box.
Similarbuild, construct, fabricate
Oppositedisassemble, dismantle
Note
The verb's history runs through likeness. It came from Old French assembler and Medieval Latin assimulāre, "to bring together", which was built on similis, "like", and goes back to a root meaning "together, one". That makes assemble a doublet of assimilate: the same Latin source reached English by a different route. In this sense the verb always takes an object, and the object is parts: type set by hand, IKEA bookshelves, a model ship.
- 2To gather together in one place as a group.
Protesters assemble in the square each weekend to voice their demands.
The committee assembled to discuss the new budget.
Similargather, congregate, convene, meet, rally
Oppositedisperse, scatter, disband
Note
Here the verb works both ways round. A group can assemble on its own (the parents assembled in the hall), or someone can assemble it, as in Milton's "Thither he assembled all his train." The King James Bible of 1611 adds a reflexive: "All the men of Israel assembled themselves." When the object is people, the meaning stays with gathering. When it is pieces, the verb has moved to the building sense.
- 3To translate instructions from assembly language into machine code that a processor can execute.
The build system will assemble each module before linking them together.
Engineers assembled the routine and loaded it into memory.
Oppositedisassemble
Note
A programmer's sense, named for the language it works on. Assembly language writes a processor's instructions as short mnemonics that map closely onto its instruction set. Assembling turns those mnemonics into the binary machine code the hardware runs directly. The object is always code, such as a routine, a module or a file. In a build, assembling each piece comes before linking the pieces together.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English assemblen, from Old French assembler, from Medieval Latin assimulāre ("to bring together"), formed from ad- plus simulō ("copy, imitate") and ultimately from similis ("like, similar"), tracing back to Proto-Indo-European *sem- ("together, one"). It is a doublet of assimilate.