[a. Fr. amasse-r (12th c.) f. à to + masser, f. masse MASS.]
1. gen. To collect into a mass or masses, to heap together, pile up, collect. † a. things material. Obs.
1594. Carew, trans. Huarte’s Trial of Wits, vi. (1596), 83. The water, with which the other elements are amassed.
1644. Bulwer, Chirol., 26. By the joyning of his Hands together, he doth amasse them into one.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, IV. (1723), 196. They are amass’d into Balls, Lumps, or Nodules.
1775. Barker, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 256. [Ice] by being collected and amassed into a large body is thus preserved.
b. things immaterial. Obs. or arch.
a. 1614. Donne, Βιαθανατος (1644), 177. This last lesson, in which hee amasses and gathers all his former Doctrine.
1638. Penit. Conf., vii. (1657), 123. That ridiculous pack of heresies amassed by the Council of Constance.
1756. Burke, Subl. & B., Wks. I. 177. With what severity of judgement, has Virgil amassed all these circumstances.
1833. I. Taylor, Fanat., viii. 311. By amassing to a prodigious height the evidences of sanctity.
c. men, troops, etc. Obs. or arch. (Cf. to mass.)
1658. Cleveland, Rustic Ramp., Wks. 1687, 415. Why they had amassed such Swarms of the People.
1660. Blount, Boscobel, 7. Cromwell had amass’d togither a numerous Body of Rebels.
1745. H. Walpole, Lett. to Montagu, 12. Lady Granville and the dowager Strafford have their At-home’s and amass company.
1802. J. Barlow, Columb., VII. 309. Her gallant Stuart here amass’d from far The veteran legions of the Georgian war.
2. intr. To gather, assemble. arch.
1572. O. King, in Froude, Hist. Eng. (1881), X. 276. The soldiers were amassing from all parts of Spain.
1881. D. Rossetti, Bal. & Sonn., 181. Billowing skies that scatter and amass.
3. esp. To heap up for oneself, collect or accumulate as one’s own. Said of wealth and resources of all kinds. (The earliest, now the ordinary sense.)
1481. Caxton, Myrr., I. iv. 14. Peple that will suffer payne and trauaylle … for to amasse grete tresours. Ibid. (1483), G. de la Tour, f v b. Erthely good that he hath gadred and amassed.
a. 1546. Surrey, Eccles., iii. (R.). The heire shall waste the whourded gold amassed with muche payne.
1712. Hughes, Spect., No. 554, ¶ 4. [He] had amassed to himself such stores of knowledge.
1725. Pope, Odyss., III. 385. Amassing gold, and gath’ring naval stores.
1769. Robertson, Charles V., V. II. 228. The great sums of money which his father had amassed.
1860. Smiles, Self-Help, iv. 84. Addison amassed as much as three folios of manuscript materials before he began his ‘Spectator.’
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, iv. 44. He has been able to amass a fortune.
