gather

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To cause to come together; convene: The teacher gathered the students around the exhibit.
2. v. To accumulate (something) gradually; amass: The top of the bookshelf gathered dust.
3. v. To harvest or pick: gather flowers; gather wild foods.
4. v. To gain by a process of gradual increase: gather speed.
5. v. To collect into one place; assemble.
6. v. To pick up and enfold: gathered the kittens into her arms.
7. v. Printing To arrange (signatures) in sequence for bookbinding.
8. v. To draw into small folds or puckers, as by pulling a thread through cloth.
9. v. To contract and wrinkle (the brow).
10. v. To draw about or bring (one thing) closer to something else: gathered the shawl about my shoulders.
11. v. To conclude; infer: I gather that a decision has not been reached.
12. v. To summon up; muster: gathered up his courage.
13. v. To attract or be a center of attraction for: The parade gathered a large crowd.
14. v. To come together in a group; assemble: A crowd gathered in the lobby.
15. v. To accumulate: Dark clouds are gathering.
16. v. To grow or increase by degrees.
17. v. To come to a head, as a boil; fester.
18. v. To forage for wild foodstuffs.
19. n. The act or an instance of gathering.
20. n. A quantity gathered.
21. n. A small fold or pucker made by gathering cloth.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To bring or draw together; assemble; congregate; collect; make a collection or aggregation of.
2. To take by selection from among other things; sort out or separate, as what is desired or valuable; cull; pick; pluck.
3. To bring closer together the component parts of; draw into smaller compass, as a garment; hence, to make folds in, as the brow by contracting it.
4. Hence In sewing, to full or shirr (a piece of cloth) by running a thread through it and then drawing it in small puckers by means of the thread.
5. In building, to contract or close in, as a drain or chimney.
6. To acquire or gain, with or without effort; accumulate; win.
7. To accumulate by saving and bringing together; amass.
8. To collect or learn by observation or reasoning; infer; conclude.
9. To bring into order; arrange; settle.
10. In glass manufacturing, to collect from the pot (a mass of molten glass) on the end of an iron tube, preparatory to blowing. This operation is performed by a workman called a gatherer. See gatherer, 6.
11. To reap, cull, crop.
12. To hoard, heap up.
13. To collect; congregate; come together: as, the clouds gather in the west.
14. To increase; grow larger by accretion.
15. To come to a head, as a sore in suppurating.
16. Synonyms To come together, muster, cluster.
17. n. A plait or fold in cloth held in position by a thread drawn through it.
18. n. A slight forward inclination of the axle-spindle of a carriage, to insure the even running of the wheel.
19. In mech., to fit into; fit together: used in speaking of the teeth of gears.
20. Nautical, to overtake another vessel: a vessel is said to gather on another when it is overtaking it.

Wiktionary

1. v. To collect; normally separate things.
2. v. To bring parts of a whole closer.
3. v. To infer or conclude; to know from a different source.
4. v. intransitive, medicine To be filled with pus
5. v. glassblowing To collect molten glass on the end of a tool.
6. n. A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker.
7. n. The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward.
8. n. The soffit or under surface of the masonry required in gathering. See gather (transitive verb).
9. n. glassblowing A piece of molten glass colected on the end of a blowpipe.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To bring together; to collect, as a number of separate things, into one place, or into one aggregate body; to assemble; to muster; to congregate.
2. v. To pick out and bring together from among what is of less value; to collect, as a harvest; to harvest; to cull; to pick off; to pluck.
3. v. To accumulate by collecting and saving little by little; to amass; to gain; to heap up.
4. v. To bring closely together the parts or particles of; to contract; to compress; to bring together in folds or plaits, as a garment; also, to draw together, as a piece of cloth by a thread; to pucker; to plait.
5. v. To derive, or deduce, as an inference; to collect, as a conclusion, from circumstances that suggest, or arguments that prove; to infer; to conclude.
6. v. obsolete To gain; to win.
7. v. (Arch.) To bring together, or nearer together, in masonry, as where the width of a fireplace is rapidly diminished to the width of the flue, or the like.
8. v. (Naut.) To haul in; to take up.
9. v. To come together; to collect; to unite; to become assembled; to congregate.
10. v. To grow larger by accretion; to increase.
11. v. To concentrate; to come to a head, as a sore, and generate pus.
12. v. To collect or bring things together.
13. n. A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker.
14. n. (Carriage Making) The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward.
15. n. (Arch.) The soffit or under surface of the masonry required in gathering. See Gather, v. t., 7.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. collect in one place
2. v. increase or develop
3. n. sewing consisting of small folds or puckers made by pulling tight a thread in a line of stitching
4. v. assemble or get together
5. v. draw and bring closer
6. v. conclude from evidence
7. v. draw together into folds or puckers
8. n. the act of gathering something
9. v. look for (food) in nature
10. v. get people together
11. v. collect or gather