Part 442

To pay the creditor . . . he must gather up money by degrees.

Locke.

4. 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; as, to gather a ruffle.

Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to stand In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.

Pope.

5. To derive, or deduce, as an inference; to collect, as a conclusion, from circumstances that suggest, or arguments that prove; to infer; to conclude.

Let me say no more! Gather the sequel by that went before.

Shak.

6. To gain; to win. [Obs.]

He gathers ground upon her in the chase.

Dryden.

7. (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. (Naut.) To haul in; to take up; as, to gather the slack of a rope.

To be gathered to one's people, or to one's fathers to die. Gen. xxv. 8. -- To gather breath, to recover normal breathing after being out of breath; to get breath; to rest. Spenser. -- To gather one's self together, to collect and dispose one's powers for a great effort, as a beast crouches preparatory to a leap. -- To gather way (Naut.), to begin to move; to move with increasing speed.

Gath"er (?), v. i. 1. To come together; to collect; to unite; to become assembled; to congregate.

When small humors gather to a gout.

Pope.

Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes.

Tennyson.

2. To grow larger by accretion; to increase.

Their snowball did not gather as it went.

Bacon.

3. To concentrate; to come to a head, as a sore, and generate pus; as, a boil has gathered.

4. To collect or bring things together.

Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strewed.

Matt. xxv. 26.

Gath"er, n. 1. A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker.

2. (Carriage Making) The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward.