amassment

English

Etymology

Probably from French amassement (“the act of amassing; the result of this action, objects that have been amassed or piled up”); equivalent to amass +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈmæsmənt/

Noun

amassment (countable and uncountable, plural amassments)

1. The act of amassing.

   All her energy was devoted to the amassment of a vast fortune.

   • 1654, Walter Charleton, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, London: Thomas Heath, Book 1, Chapter 2, p. 13,^[1]

     [...] no can know, whether He [God] created either more Atoms then were requisite to the amassment of this World, or more Worlds then this one:

   • 1731, William Oldys, A Dissertation upon Pamphlets‎^[2], London, page 7:

     [...] Curmudgeons among Books, are as discoverable as those among Bags; and [...] they may lose more Honour and Credit, than gain Wisdom or Happiness, by the fruitless Amassment and Imprisonment of either.

   • 1920, George Jean Nathan, H. L. Mencken, The American Credo‎^[3], New York: Knopf, page 24:

     Even more than the Russian Bolshevik the American democrat regards wealth with suspicion, and its too eager amassment with a bilious eye.

   • 1995, Clifford Geertz, chapter 2, in After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist,‎^[4], Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, page 23:

     Empiricism, magpie amassment of cultural detail, produces an ethnographic telephone book.

2. (countable) That which is amassed; a large quantity (of something).

   Through the Internet, we have access to an unprecedented amassment of information.

   • 1661, Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing‎^[5], London: Henry Eversden, page 104:

     [Phancy, i.e. imagination, is] but an amassment of imaginary conceptions, praejudices, ungrounded opinions, and infinite Impostures;

   • 1709, Aaron Hill, chapter 20, in A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire‎^[6], London, page 171:

     [...] many are the means, whereby the Sultan daily adds prodigious Sums to his Revenues, such as, for Example, The obliging all the Great Bashaws and Governours of his Dominions every New-Years-Day to send him Presents, commonly in ready Money, which amounts to an incredible Amassment.

   • 1893, Lew Wallace, chapter 3, in The Prince of India, or, Why Constantinople Fell‎^[7], volume 1, New York: Harper, page 21:

     [...] did he imagine he could carry his amassments with him out of the world? Had he so loved the gems in his life as to dream he could illumine his tomb with them?

   • 1935, Nellie McClung, chapter 33, in Clearing in the West: My Own Story‎^[8], Toronto: Thomas Allen:

     We had pushed everything into the middle of the floor, and she sat in a rocker on the edge of the amassment, attending to the last year’s baby.

   • 2005, Simon Winchester, chapter 4, in A Crack in the Edge of the World‎^[9], New York: HarperCollins, page 63:

     [...] I trawled my way through the staggering amassment of papers and journals and tomes that chronicle the newest developments in the astonishingly fast-moving world of modern geology.

Synonyms

• accumulation
• collection

Translations

the act of amassing

• Portuguese: amontoação f, amontoamento m

Further reading

• Edward Phillips, compiler (1658) “Amassement”, in The New World of English Words: Or, A General Dictionary: […], London: […] E. Tyler, for Nath[aniel] Brook […], →OCLC, column 1: “Amaſſement, (French) a crouding, or heaping of ſeveral things together.”.
• Elisha Coles, An English Dictionary, London: Peter Parker, 1677: “Amassement, [...] heaping up.”^[10]
• Samuel Johnson (1755 April 15) “Ama′sment”, in A Dictionary of the English Language: […], volumes I (A–K), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan, for J[ohn] and P[aul] Knapton;  […], →OCLC, column 1: “A heap; an accumulation; a collection.”