Meaning & use
congregate
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Meaning
verbintransitive
To come together in a group, usually in an informal way and often for a shared purpose.
Grammar: No object is needed; the people or animals themselves do the coming together. You can say 'Students congregated in the hall,' not 'The teacher congregated the students.'
Patterns
- congregate in a place
- congregate around someone or something
- congregate for something
Fans began to congregate outside the stadium hours before the match.
Birds congregate near the lake at sunset.
People congregated in the square to watch the fireworks.
Word forms
| third person singular | congregates |
|---|---|
| past tense | congregated |
| past participle | congregated |
| -ing form | congregating |
Common combinations
- congregate around
- The children congregated around the storyteller.
- congregate in
- Protesters congregated in the city center.
- congregate for
- The birds congregate for warmth during the winter.
- congregate outside
- Reporters congregated outside the courthouse.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gather
- More general and can be used for objects or people; 'congregate' suggests a more spontaneous coming together of people or animals.
- assemble
- More formal and often implies a planned meeting; 'congregate' is more informal and less organized.
- collect
- Often used for things being brought together, or for people gathering gradually; 'congregate' focuses on the group forming.
- cluster
- Suggests forming a tight group; 'congregate' does not necessarily imply closeness.
Opposites
Word family
- congregation noun
- A group of people who have gathered together, especially for religious worship.
- congregational adjective
- Relating to a congregation or to a type of church government.
Commonly confused: congregate or conjugate? congregate or segregate?
congregate vs conjugate
To conjugate means to give the different forms of a verb. 'Congregate' means to gather together.
congregate vs segregate
To segregate means to separate people or things, often by race or category. It is almost the opposite of congregate.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
Congregate is intransitive, so it does not take an object and is not used in the passive with a person as the agent. The students are the ones who came together, so 'The students congregated in the gym' is correct. The other options wrongly use congregate as a transitive verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “congregate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.