Verb

(en verb)

To chase down prey and (usually) kill it.

* Bible, Genesis xxvii. 5

Esau went to the field to hunt for venison.

* Tennyson

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.

* 2010 , Backyard deer hunting: converting deer to dinner for pennies per pound (ISBN 1449084354), page 10:

State Wildlife Management Areas often offer licensed hunters the opportunity to hunt deer on public lands.

To try to find something; search.

* (William Shakespeare)

He after honour hunts , I after love.

* , chapter=1

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}

* 2004 , Prill Boyle, Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Women (ISBN 1578601541), page 119:

My idea of retirement was to hunt seashells, play golf, and do a lot of walking.

* 2011 , Ann Major, Nobody's Child (ISBN 1459271939):

What kind of woman came to an island and stayed there through a violent storm and then got up the next morning to hunt seashells? She had fine, delicate features with high cheekbones and the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.

The police are hunting for evidence.

To drive; to chase; with down'', ''from'', ''away , etc.

to hunt down a criminal

He was hunted from the parish.

To use or manage (dogs, horses, etc.) in hunting.

* Addison

He hunts a pack of dogs.

To use or traverse in pursuit of game.

He hunts the woods, or the country.

Verb

(en verb)

To collect; normally separate things.

I've been gathering ideas from the people I work with.

She bent down to gather the reluctant cat from beneath the chair.

# Especially, to harvest food.

We went to gather some blackberries from the nearby lane.

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

Over the years he'd gathered a considerable collection of mugs.

# To congregate, or assemble.

People gathered round as he began to tell his story.

#* Tennyson

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

# To grow gradually larger by accretion.

#* Francis Bacon

Their snowball did not gather as it went.

To bring parts of a whole closer.

She gathered the shawl about her as she stepped into the cold.

# (sewing) To add pleats or folds to a piece of cloth, normally to reduce its width.

A gown should be gathered around the top so that it will remain shaped.

# (knitting) To bring stitches closer together.

Be careful not to stretch or gather your knitting.

If you want to emphasise the shape, it is possible to gather the waistline.

# (architecture) 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.

# (nautical) To haul in; to take up.

to gather the slack of a rope

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

From his silence, I gathered that things had not gone well.

I gather from Aunty May that you had a good day at the match.

(intransitive, medicine, of a boil or sore) To be filled with pus

Salt water can help boils to gather and then burst.

(glassblowing) To collect molten glass on the end of a tool.

To gain; to win.

* Dryden

He gathers ground upon her in the chase.