The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Gather \Gath"er\ (g[a^][th]"[~e]r), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
   Gathered; p. pr. & vb. n. Gathering.] [OE. gaderen, AS.
   gaderian, gadrian, fr. gador, geador, together, fr. g[ae]d
   fellowship; akin to E. good, D. gaderen to collect, G. gatte
   husband, MHG. gate, also companion, Goth. gadiliggs a
   sister's son. [root]29. See Good, and cf. Together.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. 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.
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            And Belgium's capital had gathered them
            Her beauty and her chivalry.          --Byron.
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            When he had gathered all the chief priests and
            scribes of the people together.       --Matt. ii. 4.
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   2. 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.
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            A rose just gathered from the stalk.  --Dryden.
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            Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
                                                  --Matt. vii.
                                                  16.
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            Gather us from among the heathen.     --Ps. cvi. 47.
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   3. To accumulate by collecting and saving little by little;
      to amass; to gain; to heap up.
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            He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his
            substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity
            the poor.                             --Prov.
                                                  xxviii. 8.
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            To pay the creditor . . . he must gather up money by
            degrees.                              --Locke.
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   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.
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            Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to stand
            In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.
                                                  --Pope.
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   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.
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            Let me say no more!
            Gather the sequel by that went before. --Shak.
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   6. To gain; to win. [Obs.]
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            He gathers ground upon her in the chase. --Dryden.
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   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.
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   8. (Naut.) To haul in; to take up; as, to gather the slack of
      a rope.
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   To be gathered to one's people or To be gathered to one's
   fathers to die. --Gen. xxv. 8.

   To gather breath, to recover normal breathing after being
      out of breath; to get one's 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.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Gathering \Gath"er*ing\, n.
   1. The act of collecting or bringing together.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. That which is gathered, collected, or brought together;
      as:
      (a) A crowd; an assembly; a congregation.
      (b) A charitable contribution; a collection.
      (c) A tumor or boil suppurated or maturated; an abscess.
          [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Gathering \Gath"er*ing\, a.
   Assembling; collecting; used for gathering or concentrating.
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   Gathering board (Bookbinding), a table or board on which
      signatures are gathered or assembled, to form a book.
      --Knight.

   Gathering coal, a lighted coal left smothered in embers
      over night, about which kindling wood is gathered in the
      morning.

   Gathering hoop, a hoop used by coopers to draw together the
      ends of barrel staves, to allow the hoops to be slipped
      over them.

   Gathering peat.
   (a) A piece of peat used as a gathering coal, to preserve a
       fire.
   (b) In Scotland, a fiery peat which was sent round by the
       Borderers as an alarm signal, as the fiery cross was by
       the Highlanders.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

gathering
    n 1: a group of persons together in one place [syn: gathering,
         assemblage]
    2: the social act of assembling; "they demanded the right of
       assembly" [syn: assembly, assemblage, gathering] [ant:
       disassembly, dismantlement, dismantling]
    3: the act of gathering something [syn: gather, gathering]
    4: sewing consisting of small folds or puckers made by pulling
       tight a thread in a line of stitching [syn: gather,
       gathering]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

289 Moby Thesaurus words for "gathering":
   Smyth sewing, abscess, accumulation, acervation, affair,
   agglomerate, agglomeration, agglutination, aggregate, aggregation,
   amassment, aposteme, apotheosis, article, articulation, ascension,
   assemblage, assemblee, assembling, assembly, assignation,
   assumption, at home, back matter, backing, ball, bed sore,
   bibliopegy, binder board, binding, blain, bleb, blister, boil,
   bond, book, book cloth, book cover, book jacket, bookbinding,
   bookcase, bracketing, brawl, bringing together, bubo, bulla, bunch,
   bunion, call-up, canker, canker sore, canvass, carbuncle, case,
   casemaking, casing-in, caucus, census, chancre, chancroid, chapter,
   chilblain, chunk, clause, clustering, cold sore, collating,
   collating mark, collection, colligation, collocation, colloquium,
   combination, commission, committee, communication, company,
   comparison, concatenation, conclave, concourse, concurrence,
   confluence, conflux, congeries, conglobation, conglomerate,
   conglomeration, congregation, congress, conjugation, conjunction,
   connection, conventicle, convention, convergence, convocation,
   copulation, corralling, council, coupling, cover, crew, crop,
   cropping, crowd, crush, cumulation, cutting, dance, data-gathering,
   date, diet, dust cover, dust jacket, eisteddfod, eschar, fascicle,
   felon, fester, festering, festivity, fete, fever blister, fistula,
   flock, folding, folio, footband, forgathering, forum, front matter,
   furuncle, furunculus, gang, get-together, gleaning, glomeration,
   gluing-off, gob, group, gumboil, hard binding, harvest, harvesting,
   headband, hemorrhoids, hookup, horde, housewarming, hunk,
   ingathering, intercommunication, intercourse, interlinking,
   inventory, jacket, joinder, joining, jointure, junction,
   juxtaposition, kibe, knotting, lesion, levee, liaison,
   library binding, lining, lining-up, linkage, linking, lump,
   marriage, mass, matinee, mechanical binding, meet, meeting, merger,
   merging, mobilization, muster, niggerhead, number, nutting, page,
   pairing, panel, papula, papule, paragraph, paronychia, party,
   parulis, passage, perfect binding, petechia, phrase, piles, pimple,
   plastic binding, plenum, pock, polyp, press, prom, pustule, quorum,
   rally, reaping, reception, rendezvous, resurrection, reunion,
   rising, rodeo, rounding, roundup, rout, ruck, saddle stitching,
   salon, scab, seance, section, sentence, session, sewing, sheet,
   shindig, side sewing, signature, sit-in, sitting, slipcase,
   slipcover, smashing, snowball, sociable, social, social affair,
   social gathering, soft binding, soft chancre, soiree, sore,
   spiral binding, splice, stamping, stapling, stigma, stockpile, sty,
   suppuration, survey, swarm, swelling, symbiosis, symposium, synod,
   tailband, text, the Ascension, the Assumption, tie, tie-in, tie-up,
   tipping, translation, trimming, tubercle, turnout, ulcer,
   ulceration, unification, union, verse, wad, wake, wale, welt,
   wheal, whelk, whitlow, wire stitching, wound, wrapper, yoking