gathering

Pluralgatherings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A meeting or get-together of people, such as a party or other social function.

   The annual gathering drew hundreds of alumni back to campus.

   She prefers quiet gatherings to loud, crowded parties.

   Similarassemblage

   Note

   An old word for an old thing: Old English gaderung already meant "assembly," a noun built from gather plus the verbal-noun ending -ing. The usual construction names who came, as in a gathering of engineers and scientists, of alumni, or of family. Assemblage is a close synonym.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A number of people or things collected together in one place.

   A gathering of storm clouds darkened the whole horizon.

   The protest began as a small gathering of students near the gates.

   Similarassemblage

   Note

   Here the word names the crowd rather than the occasion. Where the social sense is an event you attend, this one is the collection of people standing there. It also stretches to things, as in a gathering of storm clouds. An of-phrase usually says what has been collected, as in a gathering of Catholics.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of collecting produce, goods, or food from nature.

   The gathering of wild herbs once sustained whole communities.

   Successful gathering depended on knowing where ripe fruit grew.

   Similarforaging, harvesting, collecting, picking

   Note

   Uncountable here, so it takes no plural: the gathering of wild herbs, not gatherings. It names an activity and a way of getting food, which is why it can be set against cultivation. William Irwin Thompson's The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (1981) describes the Neolithic as "the transformation of gathering into gardening."

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of gather.

   Volunteers are gathering supplies for the families left homeless by the flood.

   Gathering the scattered papers from the floor, she hurried out the door.

   Note

   Two endings meet in this one spelling. The participle comes from Middle English gaderynge, with the present-participle -ing. The noun descends from Old English gaderung, a verbal noun. As a verb form it follows both of gather's patterns: transitive, as in gathering supplies, and intransitive, as in people were gathering outside, meaning assembling.

5. 5
   adjective

   Building up or increasing as more is drawn together over time.

   The gathering storm forced the festival to close early.

   A gathering sense of unease spread through the room.

   Similarmounting, increasing, rising

   Oppositewaning, diminishing, receding

   Note

   An adjective made from the present participle that keeps the verb's sense of slow accretion: something building up or closing in. It sits before nouns of weather and dark, as in gathering stormclouds or the "gathering night" outside the coach in H. G. Ellison and P. G. Barlow's "Journey through France" in Trains (1961). It takes no comparative, so there is no "more gathering" storm.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A collection of money or goods made as a charitable contribution.

   After the sermon, a gathering was made for the orphanage.

   The small gathering raised enough to repair the village hall.

   Similarcollection, offering

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A group of sheets or bifolios stacked together and folded in half to form a section of a book.

   The binder sewed each gathering to the next along the spine.

   A missing gathering left a gap in the middle of the text.

   Similarsignature, quire, section

   Note

   A binder's term, also called a section. Sheets or bifolios (single sheets folded once to make two leaves) are nested together and folded in half as a unit. Each gathering is sewn through its fold and joined to the next along the spine. Assembled in order, the gatherings make up the text block, so a missing one leaves a gap in the text.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A swelling such as a boil or tumor that has filled with pus; an abscess.

   The surgeon waited until the gathering came to a head before draining it.

   An untreated gathering on the leg can spread infection.

   Similarabscess, boil, pustule

   Note

   A medical term that describes a swelling by what happens inside it. Matter collects in one place until the boil or tumor ripens and is ready to discharge. Its typical collocation is come to a head, the moment the gathering is mature enough to drain. Abscess is the clinical synonym, while gathering keeps the picture of pus being drawn together.

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