gather vs mass

gather

noun
  • A gathering. 

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

  • 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. 

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

  • 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. 

mass

noun
  • A large body of individuals, especially persons. 

  • Bulk; magnitude; body; size. 

  • Excess body weight, especially in the form of muscle hypertrophy. 

  • Synonym of weight 

  • A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size. 

  • The Eucharist, now especially in Roman Catholicism. 

  • Celebration of the Eucharist. 

  • The lower classes of persons. 

  • The sacrament of the Eucharist. 

  • The quantity of matter which a body contains, irrespective of its bulk or volume. It is one of four fundamental properties of matter. SI unit of mass: kilogram. 

  • A musical setting of parts of the mass. 

  • A palpable or visible abnormal globular structure; a tumor. 

  • A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills; as, blue mass. 

  • The principal part; the main body. 

  • A large quantity; a sum. 

adj
  • Involving a mass of things; concerning a large quantity or number. 

  • Involving a mass of people; of, for, or by the masses. 

verb
  • To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to bring together into masses; to assemble. 

  • To assemble in a mass 

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