Other forms: gatherings
A gathering is a meeting of people in one place. Not a party exactly, and not a meeting either.
The word is deliberately vague and rather warm, which is why invitations use it, since calling something a small gathering promises nothing about formality or numbers. It also names collecting things, so the gathering of evidence or of a harvest. There is a fine adjective in gathering, since gathering darkness or a gathering storm means something building, and both are standard phrases.
1noungatheringAn assembly of people in one place.
“It was a quiet gathering of about twenty.”
2adjectiveincreasingIncreasing or building up.
“They watched the gathering storm from the porch.”
Old English
gaderung — gathering, assembly
Middle English
gadering
English, today
gathering
From Middle English gadering, from Old English gaderung (“gathering, assembly”), equivalent to gather + -ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA