集まる
Meaning in Englishto gather (v.i.), to collect
Animated kanji stroke order
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Related sentences
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Word context
What it means
集まる means to gather or come together, typically describing people or things moving toward a common point; it emphasizes converging as a group rather than dispersing.
Main meanings
- to come together, for people or objects to be located at a place
- to form a crowd or gathering for a purpose or event
- to converge or accumulate information, opinions, or resources around a topic
- to assemble or converge metaphorically, such as ideas or attention gathering around something
How to use it
Used in casual and formal speech to describe people or items coming together. Typical patterns include with subject marked by が or は and location marked by に or へ, as in people or crowds gathering at a place; polite form is 集まります; common collocations include 人が集まる, 会場に集まる, 集まりを開く.
Variants and close terms
- 集う (atsumau) - synonym, more literary
- 集合する (shuugou suru) - to assemble, more formal
- 集結する (shuuketsu suru) - to muster, converge
- 解散する (kaisan suru) - to disperse, antonym
Composition
- 集: to gather, accumulate
- まる: verb suffix turning the stem into an intransitive verb
Etymology
kanji 集; reading kunyomi atsumu + る; result atsumaru, forming the intransitive sense of to gather
Origin
Earliest usages appear in classical Japanese with the same kanji meaning to gather; Sino-Japanese readings were adopted, and the modern intransitive form became common across historical periods.
Word class
Verb (godan, u-verb) (動詞・五段動詞)