Other forms: assembled, assembling, assembles
To assemble is to put parts together into a working whole, or to bring people together in one place. Flat-pack shelves spread over the floor with an Allen key; a whole school assembling in the hall at nine.
Both halves of the word are alive. Things: assemble the frame first, assemble a team, assemble the evidence. People: the crowd assembled outside the courthouse — and here it works with no object at all, because the group does it to itself. The nouns are assembly (the act, the gathering, a school assembly, and a parliament such as the National Assembly) and assemblage; a factory has an assembly line. For people, assemble is the formal choice, while 'gather' or 'get together' is what you say to friends. Take a thing apart again and you disassemble it.
1verbassembleTo fit parts together to make something.
“The bed took two of us an entire evening to assemble.”
2verbbringTo bring people or things together in one place.
“She assembled a team of six in under a week.”
3verbplace(of people) to come together in one place.
“Parents assembled in the playground before the doors opened.”
Assemble is about being made one. It came through Old French assembler from Medieval Latin assimulo, 'to bring together', built on ad- and simulō, from similis, 'like, similar', and behind them the Proto-Indo-European sem-, 'together, one'. Its twin in English, grown from the same Latin verb, is assimilate.
Proto-Indo-European
*sem-
Medieval Latin
assimulō
Old French
assembler
Middle English
assemblen
English, today
assemble
Built from
From Middle English assemblen, from Old French assembler, from Medieval Latin assimulō. From Middle English assemblen, from Old French assembler (“to assemble”), from Medieval Latin assimulo (“to bring together”), from ad- + simulō, from similis (“like, similar”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European sem- (“together, one”). a doublet of assimilate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA