bunch vs gather

bunch

verb
  • To gather fabric into folds. 

  • To be gathered together in folds 

  • To form a bunch. 

  • To protrude or swell 

  • To gather into a bunch. 

noun
  • A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together. 

  • A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump. 

  • An informal body of friends. 

  • A considerable amount. 

  • A group of logs tied together for skidding. 

  • An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock. 

  • The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle. 

  • The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race. 

  • An unmentioned amount; a number. 

  • An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added. 

gather

verb
  • To add pleats or folds to a piece of cloth, normally to reduce its width. 

  • To grow gradually larger by accretion. 

  • To bring stitches closer together. 

  • To collect molten glass on the end of a tool. 

  • To accumulate over time, to amass little by little. 

  • To haul in; to take up. 

  • To infer or conclude; to know from a different source. 

  • To congregate, or assemble. 

  • Especially, to harvest food. 

  • To collect; normally separate things. 

  • To bring parts of a whole closer. 

  • To gain; to win. 

  • To be filled with pus 

  • 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. 

noun
  • The soffit or under surface of the masonry required in gathering. See gather (transitive verb). 

  • A gathering. 

  • The inclination forward of the axle journals to keep the wheels from working outward. 

  • A blob of molten glass collected on the end of a blowpipe. 

  • A plait or fold in cloth, made by drawing a thread through it; a pucker. 

How often have the words bunch and gather occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )