gathered

Gathered is the past tense and past participle of the verb gather. It typically means to bring together or collect something, or to cause people or things to come to a single place. As a transitive verb, gathered can describe actions like gathering crops, data, or objects: for example, "They gathered apples from the orchard." As an intransitive verb, it can indicate people or things coming together: "The crowd gathered outside the hall." It appears in perfect tenses as has gathered or had gathered.

As an adjective, gathered describes something that has been assembled or collected. It is used to signal that an amount, group, or set has been compiled or brought together. Common uses include "gathered evidence," "gathered data," and "a gathered crowd." This participial adjective conveys a completed or accumulated state rather than an ongoing gathering.

Usage notes and nuances: gathered emphasizes completion or culmination more than the process of gathering. It is frequently paired with phrases such as gathered around, gathered in, or gathered momentum, where it helps convey the result of people’s actions or events that have led to an assembled state. While synonyms include collected, assembled, or compiled, gathered often carries a sense of bringing disparate elements into a coherent whole, whether tangible objects, information, or people.